Fusion engine technology could revolutionize space travel, both in terms of speed and fuel use. The same reactions that power the Sun could cut the travel time to Mars in half, or make a trip to Saturn and its moons take two years instead of eight. This is incredibly exciting, but not everyone is convinced it will work: extremely high temperatures and pressures are required for the technology to work.

To prove the viability of the technology, Pulsar Fusion in Bletchley, UK is currently building the world’s largest fusion rocket engine. The approximately 8 meters (26 feet) long camera is scheduled to begin shooting in 2027.

As you can imagine, recreating the Sun inside a rocket isn’t easy. At the heart of a nuclear fusion engine is a superheated plasma trapped inside an electromagnetic field, and scientists continue to figure out how to do it stably and safely.

“The challenge is to learn how to contain and limit superheated plasma in the electromagnetic field,” says James Lambert, CFO of Pulsar Fusion. “Plasma acts like a weather system because it’s incredibly difficult to predict with conventional methods.”

Machine learning can help make mapping this wild airbox a little easier. Pulsar Fusion is working with Princeton Satellite Systems in the US to use supercomputer algorithms to better predict how the plasma will behave and how it can be more precisely controlled.

If scientists manage to get everything to work as intended, the temperature inside the room will reach several hundred million degrees, making it hotter than the Sun. The excess energy released could potentially increase the rocket’s speed to 500,000 miles per hour (804,672 kilometers).

The special type of engine we’re talking about here is direct fusion propulsion (DFD), where charged particles create thrust instead of being converted into electricity. It is more efficient than other options and does not require a huge fuel load as it works with atomic isotopes.

“You have to ask yourself, can humanity fusion?” Pulsar Fusion CEO Richard Dinan told TechCrunch about this. “If we can’t, then none of this matters.” “If we can – and we can – then a fusion engine is absolutely inevitable. It’s irresistible to human evolution of the Universe.”

In addition to reducing round trips to planets, nuclear fusion also promises to provide nearly unlimited clean energy for life on Earth. However, scientists believe this will be demonstrated first in space, where there is no atmosphere and ultra-low temperatures are more favorable for reactions. Source