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A comment on The revolutionary ion engine that took spacecraft to Ceres.

Re:The revolutionary ion engine that took spacecraft to Ceres by dredmorbius on Monday March 09, 2015 @07:06PM (#9174715)
Ion drives are pretty amazing. I'm curious about what the fuel availability's like though. Xenon's not very abundant on Earth, and it's really not very abundant in space, as mentioned in the article.

Its properities are highly useful: exceptionally nonreactive, not radioactive (e.g., Radon), but a heavy atom (so good specific impulse for this class of drive, and a high mass/volume ratio).

Anyone know what practical alternatives do exist?

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Re:The revolutionary ion engine that took spacecraft to Ceres by curtis on Monday March 09, 2015 @08:22PM (#9175074)
Wikipedia says Bismuth looks promising for Hall Effect-based thrusters, and VASIMR has been tested using both Xenon and Argon, the latter of which is in abundant supply, at least on Earth. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion_thruster#Propellants)
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Re:The revolutionary ion engine that took spacecraft to Ceres by dredmorbius on Tuesday March 10, 2015 @06:47AM (#9177012)
Argon does make sense -- it's higher up the table than xenon -- by two rows, which tends to mean higher abundance. It's also a Nobel gas (largely inert). But a lot lighter -- atomic weight ~40 vs. 131 -- only 30% the mass per atom.

But found with natural gas as a result of nuclear decay within the Earth's crust / mantel.

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