NASA’s longshot bet on a revolutionary rocket may be about to pay off

Re:NASA’s longshot bet on a revolutionary rocket may be abou... by binarycoffee on Wednesday February 22, 2017 @01:19PM (#13707702)

This is correct but incomplete: Vasimr may have a higher power density (be it power per thruster mass or per thruster volume) than ion thrusters but I am pretty sure it has lower power density than a Hall thruster, while being also much more complex.

The main (and not yet verified) claim of Vasimr compared to existing and proven tech like Hall thrusters is the ability to greatly vary the specific impulse.

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Re:NASA’s longshot bet on a revolutionary rocket may be abou... by jandrese on Wednesday February 22, 2017 @04:30PM (#13709329)

That's what the article claims. That you can run in a less efficient mode that produces more total thrust when you're climbing out of a gravity well, then switch to the lower thrust higher efficiency mode for the long haul.

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Re:NASA’s longshot bet on a revolutionary rocket may be abou... by ethbro on Thursday February 23, 2017 @10:26AM (#13714589)

I thought one of the issues with Hall thrusters was that, in engineering-practical terms, getting enough total thrust out of them was impossible. Or would they scale effectively?

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