/sci/ - Science & Math

>>15256980
Well its frustrating when it has the potential to revolutionize outer solar system exploration compared to the way we do things now and as you said offer shielding for spacecraft, and the only way to know for sure is to have it actually tested in space which no one looks to be keen on doing including NASA

It's just such a wrong way of doing things, waiting for the conditions to come rather than immediately examining their possibility and potential and using it if possible. If it becomes common knowledge it works and can serve to deflect cosmic / solar radiation that could spur new interest and hope in human spaceflight and have ripple effects down the line as people realize we have the technology to overcome these obstacles and even traverse the solar system at insane speeds under some degree of control.

I hate when groundbreaking tech like this is just sat on and ignored, how many planetary scientists are laboring under the assumption that chemical propulsion and multiple flybys and decade long traverse is the only way to handle scientific exploration of the solar system I wonder, when this shows us we could do so much more (if it works)

The assumption is that there must be first a mission requiring these speeds in order to justify the development and technology demonstration rather than being an intrinsic effort to discover, design and develop propulsion techniques for the sake of enabling new opportunities and possibilities and then the missions follow.

At least MSFS understands that somewhat since their people are working on not just the new RDE but the e-sail tech demonstrator too, which is good because if plasma sails don't work but e-sails do that's still an order of magnitude greater speed in the solar system than we have now