To Mars and Beyond

Rocket scientist Franklin Chang Diaz talks about finding the power and propulsion required to colonize space.

This coming January, Ad Astra Rocket Company will test the VX-200, a full-scale ground prototype of the variable specific impulse magnetoplasma rocket (VASIMIR), first conceived in 1979 by the company’s president and CEO, astronaut and plasma physicist Franklin Chang Diaz. The rocket is an attempt to improve on current space-propulsion technologies, and it would use hot plasma, heated by radio waves and controlled by a magnetic field, for propulsion. Chang Diaz believes that the system would allow rockets to travel through space at higher speeds, with greater fuel efficiency.
TR: You’ve said that with VASIMIR technology, a trip to Mars could take as little as 39 days, and, with the development of nuclear power that we talked about, people may even travel in just a few weeks to anywhere in the solar system. What do you see happening in the next phase of space exploration? How will Ad Astra be involved?

FCD: I think lots of people are going to be moving into space. I think we will be populating the moon, building enclaves of research and even money-making ventures there. Just last month, Ad Astra signed an agreement with Excalibur Exploration Ltd., a British company, to mine asteroids [when the time is right]. I believe there will be a huge demand for resources, particularly water, from asteroids and comets, because taking water from the earth is going to be very expensive. We’re probably going to supply the moon and the habitat on the moon with water from comets.

TR: You sound very certain that humans will soon colonize space.

FCD: Someday, the earth will be a place humanity will come back to, sort of like our national park. I don’t mean to get rid of the earth like an old shoe. We need to protect it so that we can always come back to it.

Technology Review