From DDP 31st Annual Meeting, July 13, 2013, Houston, TX. Dr. Franklin Chang Diaz is founder and current CEO of Ad Astra Rocket Company, www.adastrarocket.com, a U.S. firm developing advanced plasma rocket technology with operations in Houston, Texas, and Guanacaste, Costa Rica. In 2005 Dr. Chang Díaz completed a 25-year career as a NASA astronaut, where he became a veteran of 7 space missions. He has logged more than 1,600 hours in space, including 19 hours in three space walks. In 1994, in conjunction with astronaut training at NASA, he founded and directed the Advanced Space Propulsion Laboratory (ASPL) at the Johnson Space Center, where he managed a multi-center research team developing advanced plasma rocket propulsion concepts. Dr. Chang Díaz is the inventor of the VASIMR® engine, a high-power plasma rocket currently under development by Ad Astra for in-space applications. He has more than 30 years of experience in experimental plasma physics, engineering, and high-power electric propulsion and 25 years of experience in space operation and the management and implementation of research and development programs at NASA. Dr. Chang Díaz holds a Ph.D. degree in applied plasma physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Connecticut. Prior to his work at NASA, Dr. Chang Díaz was involved in magnetic and inertial confinement fusion research at MIT and the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory. He is an adjunct professor of physics at Rice University and the University of Houston.
36 Responses
Positive charged megnetic magma steel*
I thought of a way didn’t know the vasimr going on for a few yrs, like the
particle accelerator bigger though an negative charged, with gas feeders on
one end the other some holes for energy heated thrust to go out. Inside
were the gas feeds into an feeds the positive charged magnetic steel, idk
thought of things like this for a while, when huntingtrapping hiking for
days all over the northern rockies anor forest firefighting
So the only thing needed to go to Mars in 39 days is a reactor with a power
to weight 100 times better than anything that has flown so far AND 20 000
times the power of any reactor that has flown so far… yeah, that´ll
happen…
VASIMR would be great for sending robotic probes to the outer solar system
but don´t wait around for it to get you to Mars.
Im glad Dr Zubrin put the radiation issue out of the picture once and for
all. He was correct years ago even though he got nailed for saying what he
did. I take both sides I would like to go fast like Dr Diaz wants cutting
the trip time and food etc BUT I would want to be safe and be able to
return to earth if anything goes wrong on the way like using the homann
transfer orbit or similar. So my question would be Could you not speed up
the flight time … use the transfer but fly it faster … ? or does the
transfer have a speed limit you may not exceed …
Glad to see that dr Zubrin is on his soap box again people would be blind
and starved by the time they returned.
Vasimr is a clever use but the holy grail would be to create a
electromagnetic engine capable of interacting with earth’s magnetic field.
Then you wouldn’t need to eject fuel, you could just control the generated
EM fields. The power source could be a nuclear reactor. Sadly all of the
world’s largest electromagnets destroy themselves a few seconds after being
fired up. If one could interact with planetary EM fields to generate
thrust, one could also imagine using gravitational fields as guidance, like
highways.
I think Diaz handled the naysayer Zubrin very well.
Teach me how to fix that engine. 
1:05 – 1:09 blah blah blah.. Dr. Diaz reply, soo was there a question?
hahaha!
thanks for sharing ;)
Electric propulsion has its place. And so does chemical. Electric for cargo
to deep space and crew from L2 to Mars/Asteroids. Chemical should be used
to transport crew from the ground to L2 (SLS initial configuration)
VASIMR’s real advantage is in its much higher power/mass as compated to
other electric propulsion engines. It could easily handle Megawatt scale
power compared to the kilwatt scale power that ion and hall thrusters can
use.
Ad Astra has a flight version that is almost completed. It is designed to
go onto the ISS and all components are space ready. If they show that the
flight version works in ground testing it will remove all doubt of the
engine’s functionality.
I’ve only watched the opening speech yet and it seems to me that the
spokesperson leaves out the fact that the main advantage of VASIMR is NOT a
higher ISP than ion engines or energy efficiency, but the “extreme” thrust
compared to ion engines (~2.4N-5N against some millinewtons which ion
engines can deliver). Furthermore another advantage of the VASIMR engine is
that it can trade of thrust for higher ISP, and vise versa. We should wait
until the VASIMR engine is fully developed and tested before we evaluate
it. If the final version actually delivers what it promises, it would
outshadow every form of electrical propulsion we have today.
Or the Nuclear Salt-Water Rocket (NSWR) for the SLS?
Thermal radiation; in vacuum. Lying fucking CUNT!
Two assholes leading the assholes of the audience who believe in this
fucking shite.
Absolute fantacists.
Dr. Zubrin, I would like to hear more about your nuclear salt-water rocket
(or NSWR), is it feasible and could it work as a upper stage for Space X?
uhhmm ahhh okay ummmh learn to speak before you criticize others oh wait i
left out an insult.
zubrin was against the bush-moon plans. now he seems angry that it got
cancelled. I don’t follow.
Where did the 200,000 kw come from? I believe it was 200 kilowatt which is
1000 times less than the LSD fanatic is raving about. but he does have a
point about the plasma directed back to the engine from magnetic field.
Perhaps a cross between a pulse jet engine and the vasimir might work but
who really gives a damn I know I don’t plan on moving to mars any time
soon! The real reason these guys are pissed is because they now have
competition and nobody who gets fed chicken wants to end up eating the
feathers 
whats with the light on the projector screen.
thanks for the straight forward info RZ :)
Fair Warning: Moderated Wall O’ Text, Formal Rant Inbound
In honesty, the VASIMR concept is a great one but its practicality is still
far flung.
Dr. Zubrin has always had this ‘ranting’ front about him, but he makes good
points, has experience and his share of bad points. I do believe he has
some misguided disagreement to the Ad Astra team for some of their numbers,
considering the media blew it out of proportion (And we know how the media
likes to twist #s)
To start off, his main point is that we don’t need VASIMR to get to Mars,
we can do it with existing tech and without Govt scape goats of “we need
new tech so we can fund it”
-Yes the Govt is looking for scape goats so they can delay missions due to
funding.
-Yes VASIMR requires a high power source (Ad Astra admitted to this)
-Yes you run the risk of diverging plumes if you can’t balance exhaust
velocity with Thrust (Remember higher exhaust velocity equals lower thrust,
and you need high velocity to escape those B field lines depending upon the
B-field strength)
-Yes efficiency in VASMIR’s subsystems (RF generator, B Field couplers,
etc) is an issue that needs/has-been to be addressed.
-Yes without large amounts of coolant, you can’t do long burns with VASIMR
Notes: Average Close Encounter Distance Earth->Mars ~82.2 million km. In 39
days, you’d need a transit velocity of ~24335 m/s. For comparison, Deep
Space One (A Ion Drive Probe) had a velocity of ~4291m/s with an Isp of
~2500s, covering a distance of ~180 million km in a timespan of Oct ’98 to
July ’99 (~9 Months). I know this is an apples-to-oranges comparison,
however we have to be grounded to *what is feasible* in terms of transit
time.
His cons however are as stated:
-He has not done his fair share of digging in the numbers, Ad Astra has
developed 100kW VASIMR rockets
-His follow up speaker makes mention of pulsating the magnetic field to
save on coolant.
For as much “butthurt & ranting” as Dr. Zubrin may seem, he still makes
*realistic* points about this type of propulsion that some people need to
come back to the ground and realize “We need not build these large crafts
to get us there, when we can moderate and be smart about how and what we
use to get us *there* “
sounds like someone has an evil stepmom
This dude takes himself way too seriously.
I think the VASIMR rocket concept is quite normal, and it isn’t really a
hoax unless the people building it have deceptive motives. I think a
next-generation nuclear powered spacecraft is a wonderful technology in the
hands of the Bourgeois…
Is the VASIMR ion thrusters technology related to David LaPoint’s
explanation of plasma jets stream on both magnetic pole direction as shown
in his work on “The Primer Fields”?
in the long run the answer is of course fusion. Either a direct fusion
drive or a reator running on the proton Boron-11 reaction cycle. And the
reactor will have to be one of the non Tokamak types if, a big if they can
get them to work
Is there even any point having a manned spaceflight program anymore in the
US? No manned mars mission is going to get funding this side of 2040, and
the only reason even SLS exists is because of the need to placate key
businesses and Florida.
Wow, a devastating takedown on VASIMR by Zubrin. 
Instead of turning to kindergarten level debating skills, why don’t you try
to point where and how I am wrong.
True, and the VASIMR folks have wisely not mentioned that. I was replying
to the observation that some were talking about 500 day burns in
interplanetary transits. And I should have said interstellar “burns” will
take over a year. Obviously the transit will take over a year. But anyway,
the point made was that VASIMR is low power and needs to burn long to get a
good delta v. But the key problem is specific power and the mass of the
primary mover.
this is stupid! VASIMR should be given a chance because moon projects won’t
get humanity anywhere it already hasn’t.
@halfshallow Good point.
The AdAstra Company responsible for the VASIMIR sure has a lot of people
fooled. We could use a NTR and get twice the efficiency of our best
chemical rockets. In fact such rockets are under development in Russia
today.
The problem is that future propulsion systems are indeed needed for future
missions, we can’t expect to rely on chemical propulsion forever. In the
30’s the Allies wheren’t interested in building jet propulsion ’cause they
thought existing propeller driven planes where all they would ever need.
Its only when the Germans created the 1st jet fighter that they realized it
was a big mistake to not try and develop a better propulsion system. Now
today jet propulsion is everywhere.
@aurora7207 No need to argue that point, I agree. I just use it as the
example simply because it is the most dominant and influential globally
(and it’s the one that’s directly related to this (Mars Society)). But, it
actually goes even deeper to our root notions of value and ownership.
Peeking at your channel I can see we share a common outlook. If you head
over to my channel I think you’ll find some vids you might enjoy.