Space on the John Batchelor Show this week with Bob Zimmerman & Hotel Mars

Bob Zimmerman reports on the latest space news during regular weekly slots (usually Tuesday and Thursdays) on the John Batchelor radio program. See the iTunes free Podcast for links to the latest shows.

Tuesday, April 2: Climate

  1. James Hansen retires to become a full time global warming activist.
  2. Global warming activists admit the climate hasn’t warmed in 20 years.

Thursday, April 4:

Segment 1: Space

  1. The rollout of Antares for its first launch is set for Saturday.
  2. SpaceShipTwo successfully completes more glide tests.
  3. India successfully tests a homebuilt engine for its more powerful rocket.
  4. A successful commercial Proton rocket launch last week.
  5. A discussion of Peter Wilson’s Aviation Week op-ed, proposing that SLS be killed.
  6. Spaceport legislation in both New Mexico and Texas

Segment 2: Climate, environmentalism, and the UN.

  • A discussion the ramifications of Canada’s decision to pull out of UN desertification program, and how that relates to the politics of the IPCC and global warming.

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This week’s Hotel Mars segment of the Batchelor show with David Livingston included an interview of space scientist David Grinspoon, who talked about the extreme weather of Venus and  the complex organic chemistry of Titan, a moon of Saturn: The John Batchelor Show Hotel Mars, Wednesday, 4-3-13 – Thespaceshow’s Blog.

Humans2Mars Conference – May 6-8, Washington D.C.

The ExploreMars advocacy organization is sponsoring the Humans2Mars Conference 2013, May 6-8, 2013 at George Washington University, Washington D.C. –

H2M is a comprehensive Mars exploration conference, organized by Explore Mars, Inc. to address the major challenges that need to be overcome to send humans to Mars by 2030

Find on line the long List of Speakers and the daily Agenda.

Related events:

MARS DAY ON THE HILL: Registration has started for Mars Day on the Hill. On May 9th, we will be sending a delegation up to Capitol Hill in support of Mars exploration. Help us explain to members of Congress why they should support human missions to Mars. Register today at h2m.exploremars.org/register.

VINT CERF LUNCH: Secondary Registration ($45) has begun for the Vint Cerf lunch. This lunch will take place at Noon on May 7, 2013 in the City View Room at George Washington University. Mr. Cerf will be discussing the prospects of Interplanetary Internet. To register for this lunch, please go to the registration page at h2m.exploremars.org/register. Seats are limited, so reserve soon. REMEMBER: This lunch is not included with your general registration.

Fusion Driven Rocket – NIAC funded project at Univ. of Washington

John. Slough of the Plasma Dynamics Lab at the University of Washington has been developing Pulsed High Density Fusion systems for many years. He has also been working on adapting the technique for space propulsion and has won a couple of grants from the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program. The Fusion Driven Rocket: Nuclear Propulsion through Direct Conversion of Fusion Energy – NASA

The Fusion Driven rocket (FDR) represents a revolutionary approach to fusion propulsion where the power source releases its energy directly into the propellant, not requiring conversion to electricity. It employs a solid lithium propellant that requires no significant tankage mass. The propellant is rapidly heated and accelerated to high exhaust velocity (> 30 km/s), while having no significant physical interaction with the spacecraft thereby avoiding damage to the rocket and limiting both the thermal heat load and radiator mass. In addition, it is believed that the FDR can be realized with little extrapolation from currently existing technology, at high specific power (~ 1 kW/kg), at a reasonable mass scale (<100 mt), and therefore cost.

If realized, it would not only enable manned interplanetary space travel, it would allow it to become common place. The key to achieving all this stems from research at MSNW on the magnetically driven implosion of metal foils onto a magnetized plasma target to obtain fusion conditions. A logical extension of this work leads to a method that utilizes these metal shells (or liners) to not only achieve fusion conditions, but to serve as the propellant as well. Several low-mass, magnetically-driven metal liners are inductively driven to converge radially and axially and form a thick blanket surrounding the target plasmoid and compress the plasmoid to fusion conditions.

Virtually all of the radiant, neutron and particle energy from the plasma is absorbed by the encapsulating, metal blanket thereby isolating the spacecraft from the fusion process and eliminating the need for large radiator mass. This energy, in addition to the intense Ohmic heating at peak magnetic field compression, is adequate to vaporize and ionize the metal blanket. The expansion of this hot, ionized metal propellant through a magnetically insulated nozzle produces high thrust at the optimal Isp. The energy from the fusion process, is thus utilized at very high efficiency.

His team has made progress on individual components of the system and this summer they will test the entire system:

Here is a slide from  the presentation: Nuclear Propulsion through Direct Conversion of Fusion Energy: The Fusion Driven Rocket, John Slough et al, NIAC Spring 2012 Symposium – Mar.2012 (pdf)

SloughPresentation2012-03

Update April.6.13:  Alan Boyle has some additional background about the project: Scientists develop fusion rocket technology in lab – and aim for Mars – Cosmic Log.

See also Slough’s company MSNW LLC.

Everyone can participate in space