NASA Targets to Get Mars in Just 45 Days
- ICON
Existing chemical rockets produce around 450 seconds of specific impulse, so if Gosse is right this is a step change in what is possible, as quoted from the IFL Science site.
For robotic missions, the time taken to Mars is a minor consideration, but it’s possibly the largest obstacle to sending humans there. Astronauts would have to cope with everything from radiation exposure and muscle wastage to boredom on missions expected to take at least six months each way.
Simply stocking enough food would be a major contributor to the weight of the mission, and therefore the cost.
Other ultra-ambitious concepts to win Phase I funding in this round include an idea to make telescope mirrors in space, evading the size bottleneck imposed by launches, a pipeline to bring oxygen from the lunar south pole to future bases, rather than trucking compressed gas tanks and a nuclear-powered probe to access the interior oceans of icy moons like Europa.