The Future In-Space Operations (FISO) working group invited us to give a talk in their weekly seminar track. On Wednesday, July 24, 2013, we gave a presentation entitled “Direct Fusion Drive for Fast Mars Missions with the Orion Spacecraft”. You can find the slides we presented in their online archive here.
We first discussed the need to get to Mars and back home fast (see our recent blog post on the risks of extended durations in space). We then presented some preliminary studies on the double rendezvous problem of Earth -to- Mars -to- Earth, and introduced the Direct Fusion Drive (DFD) as a future propulsion technology that can make this mission happen.
Dozens of people dialed in from around the country. Dr. Dan Lester (U Texas) and Dr. Harley Thronson (NASA Goddard) gave us a warm introduction, and there were a number of insightful questions throughout the talk that sparked interesting dialog. We were also joined by colleagues at MSNW who are developing another form of fusion propulsion, called the “The Fusion Driven Rocket“.
It was an honor to be part of the FISO working group. The questions and feedback we received from this group have been extremely valuable, and it is another sign of the growing interest in fusion propulsion!
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