/sci/ - Science & Math

Excuse me, best radiation shielding coming through.

Question. Lets say I have a fusion rocket that is a pure fusion rocket. It gets only around 10 Newtons of thrust but an impressive exhaust velocity of 100,000 m/s. Now lets say I wan't to put a turbo on it in the form of making it an after-burner fusion rocket. Using remass like Hydrogen or something. Now lets say I wan't to jack the thrust up to like 2,000 Kilonewtons of thrust from its original 10 newtons. Obviously the flow rate will go up thanks to the introduction of reaction mass in the form of Hydrogen. My question however is. What the fuck would the exhaust velocity be? I know it would probably go down but here's the thing. I'm not uping the flow rate of the fusion fuel, I'm just adding reaction mass propellant. So because of that, the exhaust velocity wouldn't change on account of the flow rate going up, cause it's not for the fuel. But it would still go down due to cooling the plasma with the "cold" remass. I just don't know how to figure that shit out at all though.

Would we be capable of making a spacecraft that would be capable of accelerating at 1g half way, then decelerating the other half continuously from Earth to Mars? Could a Fusion powered ship do that?