MAE Associate Professor Richard Wirz was recently featured in the international “PLASMA” Art & Science magazine, where his article “Plasma Rockets” was published.
From the beginning:
Plasma Rockets are the new renaissance in space travel. Like electric cars in space, they are the most efficient way to use both fuel and power to move a spacecraft. All rockets carry “propellant” that is pushed out in one direction, which results in a push, or “thrust”, on the spacecraft in the opposite direction (every action has an equal and opposite reaction…). Like conventional space rockets, it must carry all its propellant; but unlike conventional rockets, they use electric power to be super-efficient with this propellant. Since it is very expensive to carry propellant into space, the high propellant efficiency of plasma rockets is very attractive for many space missions, many of which are now only possible with plasma rockets.