Gentlefolk, I'm not familiar with the Mars mission application, but the idea of using antiprotons to trigger fission/fusion reactions for nuclear pulse propulsion originated (as far as I know) with Dr. Gerald Smith, then of Penn State, who was part of the Air Force effort I helped manage in the '80's. It is serious. The details below are courtesy of: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Vault/9054/artsvf4.html
--Best, Gerald Nordley [Former Pen State physicist Gerald Smith] proposes using antimatter as a catalyst for a conventional fission-fusion reaction--the kind used in hydrogen bombs. These start with a piece of uranium. Bombarding it with neutrons starts a fission reaction, which in turn heats a capsule of deuterium and tritium--heavy forms of hydrogen-- thus triggering a fusion reaction. The drawback, from the standpoint of space travel, is that these reactions produce huge explosions, equivalent to millions of tons of TNT, that are difficult to contain in a combustion chamber. Smith proposes cutting them down to size by truncating the initial fission reaction. He would inject antiprotons into a capsule of uranium containing a smidgen of deuterium and tritium. When an antiproton hits a uranium atom, it annihilates itself along with one of the protons in the nucleus. A few of the resulting pions rip through the remainder of the nucleus and blast it apart, releasing copious neutrons- more than six times the number of neutrons produced in a conventional fission reaction. The resulting fission chain reaction proceeds enormously fast, generating enough heat and pressure to trigger a fusion reaction in the deuterium-tritium core. Using antiprotons to jump-start the fission reaction in this way would allow Smith to trigger the fusion reaction with only a tiny pellet of uranium. The result, according to Smith's calculations, is a microexplosion equivalent to roughl 15 tons of TNT. By setting off one of these every second for a few days, a manned ship could get up enough steam to make it to Pluto in only three years, Smith reckons. Smith is aware that the idea of powering a spacecraft with hydrogen bombs sounds alarming. "We would take what is obviously a very nasty thing, which we all hope will never, ever be used on Earth, and try to reduce it to an object 1,000 times smaller so we can take advantage of the physics that goes on," says Smith. "Other people have looked at this, and I don't think anybody thinks it's crazy. It makes sense. What's needed is a test." _______________________________________________ ERPS-list mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.erps.org/mailman/listinfo/erps-list
