And it would also be phenomenal because a lot of money would be saved on the mission, since a mission to Mars would currently last at least 2 years, but of course if you can travel to Mars like many for 60 days, in two months, being there doing what you have to do and returning in another two months also means that you need to spend much less on food, oxygen and supplies for the astronauts, it would be a huge saving for space travel.
These types of engines are not useful to take a ship from the earth, or from Mars, or from the moon, they do not produce enough thrust to take a ship and overcome the gravity of those planets or the moon, for that we will still need chemical fuel rockets, but to push it into space they are ideal, for example, if you are thinking about the StarShip, the StarShip could use its super rocket to leave the earth, take a tugboat as is what the Russians define, this type of engines call it for tug ships with nuclear power feeding the plasma electric motor.
Think the StarShip will hook up to that tow ship, the tow ship would take the StarShip to Mars orbit and then the StarShip could land with its raptor engines on the surface of Mars and then leave with its raptor engines to the orbit of Mars and then again the tug and return to the earth.
The Russians have presented a prototype of a plasma engine, the Rosatom company presented it on February 7, Rosatom scientists have developed that prototype, which is an electric rocket engine based on a magnetic plasma accelerator, it has a thrust of at least 6 Newtons and according to the researchers, a ship pushed by that engine could reach 100 km per second, which would be phenomenal to be able to explore the solar system.
The project is part of a comprehensive program aimed at promoting science, engineering and nuclear technology in Russia that in 2025 emerged as part of the new National Technological Leadership initiative, this type of engines can push a ship at high speed at 100 km per second, they could make the trip to sea that currently with what we have would take between 6 months and a year from what I am reading, but with this type of engines, because engines in plural, This is the one that Russia is developing but the United States is also developing a similar one and China is also developing its own, but with this particular engine, the Russian one could make the trip in just 30 to 60 days, which would be wonderful for the health of the astronauts, since they would be exposed to microgravity or weightlessness for much less time and also to cosmic radiation.
China is developing its own, the United States is also developing it through NASA and I think they are all based on one known as Vasim, the interesting thing is that it was also a propulsion engine for variable specific impulse magnetoplasma space vehicles. It is the precursor to all of these, and it was created by a company directed by the Costa Rican astronaut flanking Chang Díaz and that is the engine that converts electricity into plasma and that is what produces the thrust but of course it needs electricity it needs energy and that is why in the Russian case it would be nuclear energy of fission.
In the American case it would also be nuclear energy but not fission but fusion and also the English now that I remember the United Kingdom has a company that is developing a nuclear fusion engine in this space race.
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