A Plasma Rocket engine may get us to Mars in 40 days

Born the son of Chinese and Costa Rican parents and with just $50 in his pocket, Franklin Chang Diaz came to the U.S. to do his undergraduate studies at the University of Connecticut and later, his graduate work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. At the time, the 18-year-old had no idea that he would ever fly in space, let alone set a world mark for it. He is now co-record holder for the number of visits to the International Space Station -- seven Space Shuttle flights from 1986 to 2002 -- tied with Jerry Ross.

Franklin Chang Diaz at Ad Astra Rocket in Houston. Courtesy Ad Astra Rocket Co.
Franklin Chang Diaz at Ad Astra Rocket Co. in Houston, TX.

If that isn't enough Chang Diaz, retired from NASA since 2005, works at his Houston, TX-based Ad Astra Rocket Co. developing a revolutionary plasma engine. In his new book, "To Mars and Beyond, Fast" (Springer Books, June 2017, co-written with Erik Seedhouse) Chang Diaz discusses the high concept in layman's terms. Theoretically, the engine could cut time for manned missions to Mars to as little as 39 days versus the eight months it would take using today’s chemical rockets. NASA has shown interest. In 2015, it gave Chang Diaz a three-year, $9-million development contract.

"A rocket engine is a canister holding high-pressure gas," Chang Diaz, 67, explains. "When you open a hole at one end, the gas squirts out and the rocket goes the other way. The hotter the stuff in the canister, the higher the speed it escapes and the faster the rocket goes. But if it’s too hot, it melts the canister."

So what do you do to counter that? "When gas gets above 10,000 degrees, it changes to plasma -- an electrically charged soup of particles. And these particles can be held together by a magnetic field. The magnetic field becomes the canister, and there is no limit to how hot you can make the plasma."