NASA
is considering flying a prototype plasma rocket engine designed by a former
astronaut to the International Space Station for testing, officials said
Wednesday. The engine is called a Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma
Rocket, or VASIMR, and if that sounds like something you'd see on Star Trek,
you're not too far from the truth. Rather than heating chemicals and directing
the resulting gases through high-temperature metal nozzles, VASIMR uses radio
waves to create and speed up free-flying, electrically charged particles known
as plasma. The concoction is then herded through nozzles made of magnetic
fields, not metals like traditional rocket engines. The sun and stars are made
of plasma and physicists believe magnetic fields shape the tell-tale jets of gas
generated by black holes.
Apparently the engine is designed to work only in the vacuum of space; hence the
developing company Ad Astra along with NASA's support wants to launch this
engine in 2011 or 2012. the reason behind the space testing is to see how the
engine performs in the vacuum of space without spending extra money on
developing and flying communications systems, power supplies and other services
to support the tests.