Nuclear fusion (along with renewables) will be key to moving the world away from the catastrophic fossil fuel burning model and into cheap, abundant, environmentally responsible energy (although any form of energy production has an environmental impact to some extent) and safer than fission reactors.

The theory of nuclear fusion is well known because it powers stars like our Sun, and has been researched since 1950. The problem is that we haven’t had the technical ability to harness this power, and neither have those in charge of it. Today, ambitious projects such as ITER, the International Experimental Reactor, are underway. This to obtain energy on Earth, but can also be used to significantly reduce space travel time.

Nuclear fusion for space travel

Pulsar Fusion has begun construction of a large nuclear fusion chamber in England to create the first space propulsion system using this technology. “The goose that lays the golden eggs” if he delivers what he promises, cut the travel time to Mars in half and shorten the trip to Saturn’s moon Titan from the current 10 years to just two years.

It sounds like science fiction, but Pulsar CEO Richard Dinan said so in a recent interview fusion propulsion was “inevitable” for the evolution of humans in space.. For most of its eleven-year history, the British company has focused on investigating mergers. Recently, he has started developing products that could earn him an income while he continues the overall project. Mainly two. Electric Hall-effect thruster for spacecraft and second-stage hybrid rocket engine.

For this company, the future is deep space travel via Fusion. Faced with the enormous difficulty of generating energy on Earth, they say that space propulsion will be “easier” because the conditions in space (very cold and near perfect vacuum) will facilitate the reaction to create the necessary hydrogen plasma.

However, technical difficulties they remain the same as on Earth, stabilizing the superhot overpressure plasma in the electromagnetic field, thereby creating escape velocities fast enough for interstellar travel. The company created a reaction chamber for the tests and partnered with Princeton Satellite Systems to use supercomputer simulations to better understand how the plasma will behave in electromagnetic confinement.

They will also create a model to see how the plasma would behave as it exits the rocket engine, and all this data will help create the final design. The next step would be an in-orbit demonstration planned for 2027, where the company would try launch a nuclear fusion powered propulsion system into space for the first time. It is hoped that the incredible energy density of these reactions will result in much higher cruise speeds and use only a fraction of the fuel compared to existing propulsion systems.