User:Kpatel1221/sandbox

Although now Interstellar travel is impossible it may be just a matter of time till we might be saying “lets make the jump to hyper space” (star wars). The problem with traveling to other stars now is the fact that the chemical rockets that we use now just can’t provide thrust long enough to achieve the speeds that would be necessary to reach the nearest star in even a single life time not unless a ridiculous amount of fuel is used (which would be very hard to get to space). However, scientists and engineers around the world have been working on new types of rockets and new designs for rocket engines. These new rocket engines are capable of lasting much longer than chemical rockets or even traveling much faster. There are in a basic sense a few different types of rockets there are rockets that produce a small amount of thrust, rockets that can produce a lot of thrust by converting matter to energy (by either fusion or fission), and there are engine designs that are more theoretical then proven possible. The first of the basic types of the new rocket engines or propulsion technique (that provides little thrust but, long burn time capability) can accelerate over an extended period, and thus the engine can achieve high speeds. Although these types of rockets can’t produce the same amount of thrust as a chemical rocket, these rockets can generate thrust for much longer than chemical rockets allowing for them to accelerate gradually and achieve much higher speeds than chemical rockets. An example of this would be solar sail technology which uses the light (generally from a star) to in a basic sense push it along much like a sailboat uses the wind on earth. The problem with the solar sail is that as it gets farther from the light source (such as a star), the less thrust can produce due to the light from the light source spreading apart. Other designs don't depend on light sources such as ion engines also known as ion thrusters. The advantage of the ion thruster is that it can produce the same amount of thrust even farther out than the solar sail and has the advantage of requiring much less fuel than ordinary chemical rockets. An example of an ion thruster is NASA Evolutionary Xenon Thruster which uses xenon ions that it produces from xenon to accelerate the craft. The ions are accelerated by being pulled to negative and positively charged sides of the engines similar to how two magnet’s north and south poles pull the two poles together. This design, however, has a disadvantage in that it slowly accelerates and takes just as much time to accelerate as it does take to decelerate.

The second basic type involves Einstein’s famous equation to produce thrust. These types of rockets can use fission or fusion to generate thrust such as the rocket that NASA is developing for possible future Mars missions. The rocket uses the method that is used in most nuclear power plants to generate electricity, except instead of turning water to steam it turns liquid hydrogen to its gas or plasma state and has the hydrogen(gas or plasma) focused out a nozzle. There is also another nuclear rocket engine design that involves using fusion to propel itself. The rocket engine in a simple sense requires a bubble of plasma that is kept together by its magnetic field and whose magnetic field is strong enough to pull on a metal ring and the metal to implode. Then the implosion creates enough pressure for fusion to occur for a brief amount of time in the plasma bubble. Once fusion occurs it super heats the metal and ionizes the metal which can be released at high velocities out the other end of the rocket. While these rocket engines do produce quite a bit of thrust, an antimatter rocket would produce even more because it completely converts matter to energy unlike the fission or fusion rocket engines. Fission and fusion rockets are also much more limited on burn time than an antimatter rocket is. However, the problem with antimatter rockets is getting the antimatter to power them considering it takes hundreds of millions of dollars to produce even something like ten milligrams. The other problem with antimatter rockets is storing antimatter because it will instantly react with matter releasing energy.

The last basic type is the mostly theoretical type which includes engines based off of both Stephen Hawking’s and Einstein’s work. These theoretical designs can sound bizarre like using a black hole as a means of propulsion, but if they work, they can allow for travel at incredible speeds. There is a design that utilizes Stephen Hawking’s theory of Hawking radiation to propel a rocket. There is also a rocket engine that uses Einstein’s equation of general relativity to travel faster than light. The rocket engine is known as the Alcubierre Drive which distorts the space around it. Specifically to cause the space in front of it to contract and space behind it to expand which allows the drive to move in its location however since it is not shooting  any mater or energy out of one end and instead is using space itself to propel the craft it can travel faster than light. However the problem with these designs is that they are theoretical so they may or may not even be possible.