/sci/ - Science & Math

>>9537745
A fusion torchship MIGHT be capable of boosting all the way to Mars at 1 gee.
Image shows a 100 metric tonne (empty fuel tanks) ship going to Mars when the planets are at their closest. The drive is deuterium-tritium fusion and you start with 6 tonnes of fuel.

Total energy used during the flight -- 481 megatons (nearly ten times the Tsar Bomba!)
Energy release is 3.2 kilotons/second
That's Hiroshima every five-and-a-half seconds! You do NOT want to get in the way of the exhaust.
The power is 13.5e12 watts. ASSUME the engine is 99% efficient. Wildly optimistic!!!! That leaves you with 13.5e10 watts inside your own ship, which you have to dispose of by radiation. That's 135,000 megawatts.
For comparison, the Hanford reactor (intended to produce Plutonium) had a thermal output of 250 megawatts (two-tenths of a percent of what we're talking here) and required 30,000 US gallons of cooling water (110,000 L) per minute.
The radiators are going to be large, fragile, and likely to limit the ship to very low accelerations. The Epstein Drive, this isn't!