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so right now here in mission control

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houston i'm being joined by ken balweg

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and ken is the project manager for

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vasimer which is a next generation

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plasma rocket so ken thank you so much

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for being here today and why don't you

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tell us a little bit about what the

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vasmer project is

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okay thanks dan thanks for having me

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here

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vasmir stands for variable specific

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impulse magnetoplasma rocket

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yes it is that's why we shorten it to

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vasmir

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as you said we have long duration

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flights planned but the purpose of

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asmere is to shorten those flights it's

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a very high power electric propulsion

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plasma rocket

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mostly other electric propulsion systems

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that are being developed are on the

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order of

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5 10 20 maybe 50 kilowatts vasmir in its

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current experimental stage is at 200

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kilowatts and we have goals to go up to

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megawatt sorts of ranges now of course

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the problem with that is you need a lot

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of power you know megawatt is a lot of

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power for instance the space station has

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240 kilowatts of solar panels on it so

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it would use you know 200 kilowatts

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would use up a significant portion of

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that

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um

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but what vasmir is doing what the

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company at astra is doing is trying to

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develop this rocket to show that it can

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achieve steady-state operations thermal

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operations

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they've already achieved plasma

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operations that are very well known it

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becomes steady state in the order of

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milliseconds

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and they've done thousands and thousands

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of firings so this is a pretty well

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advanced technology that they're

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developing okay and uh one of the things

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you mentioned is the the whole idea of

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this is to make those long duration

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missions shorter now how does this

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rocket you know differ from just our

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standard chemical propelled rockets how

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is it going to do that how is it going

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to make it shorter well a typical

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chemical rocket

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is very powerful is a lot of stored

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energy between the oxidizer and the fuel

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so it's a lot of power that's expended

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very quickly as you lift off the launch

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pad you will still we will still need

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chemical rockets to get off the off the

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earth's surface and in the low earth

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orbit

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um for instance

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we measure the rocket's efficiency in

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isp or specific impulse

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for instance uh the srbs for the shuttle

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on the order of 250 seconds is the unit

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that is used for it um the space shuttle

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main engines are on the order of 450

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seconds

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vasmir can operate anywhere from 2500

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seconds to 10 000 seconds

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so as you can see it's an order of

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magnitude or two more efficient

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than uh than a chemical rocket now what

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this means instead of having a lot of

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power in a very short time you know on

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an order of minutes which you typically

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do with chemical rockets vasmir can run

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for hours days weeks

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very small thrust but for a very long

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time so you just keep accelerating your

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spacecraft you just kind of consistently

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build that speed up and up and i mean

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rough estimate about how much could you

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actually shorten let's say a trip to

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mars

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well instead of it taking on the order

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of say 10 months to a year it could be

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shortened to the order of three or four

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months

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depending on how much power you have to

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deliver now in order to get to those

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sort of you know three or four months

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sort of times you need megawatts of

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power which which implies nuclear

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sources okay rather than solar electric

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okay and uh why don't you tell us a

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little about about a little bit about

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some of the testing that's been going on

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what stage are you guys in right now you

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mentioned i think you're at like a 200

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megawatt

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stage right now what's what's some of

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the testing you guys have been doing

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it's 200 kilowatts

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sorry i'm getting a little

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that would be awesome we get to mars in

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a very short time at 200 megawatts um

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so the testing we're doing right now

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we're characterizing the plume uh and

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you know we're looking at plume

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characteristics we're also looking at

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what's called a throttle table in other

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words to to understand exactly what sort

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of performance you're going to get at

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certain propellant flows certain power

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distribution inside the rocket because

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it's actually a two-stage rocket you

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have a front end that actually ionizes

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the propellant typically argon sometimes

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krypton uh can actually do hydrogen neon

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other we fired many things in it but

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typically argon and krypton are our two

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main fuels

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um so we go at different flow rates we

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will put a different amount of power in

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the front end that ionizes it and then

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on the rear end of the rocket which is

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the uh ion synchrotron heating section

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we'll change the power in that to see

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what the efficiency of the rocket is

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okay and you mentioned all these

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different types of fuels that you're

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able to use i know fuel is always kind

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of a huge concern whenever you're

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traveling into space especially

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on these long-duration missions as fuel

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weighs a lot

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the more you bring the more you know

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more propulsion you're going to need and

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things like that how much fuel

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you think is is is it all going to be an

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overall reduction in fuels so

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that's exactly right that's exactly what

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we're trying to achieve here because

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because the higher fuel efficiency

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remember i said isps of you know 2500 to

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10 000 you can bring much less fuel than

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what you would need if you're going to

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do this chemically remember chemically

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even the shuttle main engines which are

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very efficient you know as it is a

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cryogenic oxygen uh liquid hydrogen

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system um still only an isp of 450

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seconds so you have to bring an awful

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lot of fuel to get you from here to

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there

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vasmir while it uses

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fuel at a much lower rate because it's

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much more efficient it also needs much

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less fuel to do to achieve the same

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mission okay

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and so what are some of the uh the

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future tests that you guys are hoping to

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accomplish you know within the next few

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years

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the key thing the next big step is to

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achieve thermal steady state okay

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what is that real quick well when you

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when you fire up a plasma first of all

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it's kind of like these fluorescents

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like lights in these rooms you turn it

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on boom it's at steady state the

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heartbeat but it takes a while for that

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bulb to warm up well it's the same thing

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with a plasma rocket now we're talking

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millions of degrees here it gets very

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very warm that plasma is very hot it's

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contained by a very strong magnetic

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field uh generated by a superconducting

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magnet

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and um

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what happens is over time that plasma

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eventually the radiation coming off of

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it will soak into the magnet soak into

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its surroundings and make it warmer and

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warmer to the point where you actually

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can't operate it so what we need to do

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next is develop the high temperature

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heat rejection systems to take that heat

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that's coming from that plasma core

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outside the engine and radiate it to

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space gotcha so

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i mean a lot of really complicated stuff

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going on right now but the potential for

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a huge payoff

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yes yes the the complicated stuff is

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understanding the plasma physics and

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that is well done like i said they've

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done thousands and thousands of firings

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with all sorts of different propellants

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and different durations but it's still

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on the order of seconds to minutes

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the what we need to do now is just more

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the engineering it's it's it is an r d

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program it's it's not easy to deal with

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these kind of temperatures but it's

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things that have been done before it

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just needs to be applied to this

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particular technology gotcha

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and um you also mentioned uh that you've

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been involved with a number of other

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technologies and things that are going

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to help protect our astronauts and

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specifically you had mentioned to me

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uh radiation shielding

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especially which is very important

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especially when we're moving out beyond

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the protection of earth's magnetosphere

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and a lot of people have been reading in

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the news lately all the stuff about the

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solar flare and how that could

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potentially affect astronauts and things

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like that so why don't you tell me a

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little bit about the work you've been

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doing with uh long-term radiation

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shielding

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okay well this this also fits into

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superconducting magnets um vasmir is

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going to use high temperature

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superconducting magnets and we've also

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been studying

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those for use in radiation shielding now

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what we're seeing so far is that we

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don't think you can do the radiation

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shielding you need for long duration

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flight with just passive shielding um

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like things like just panels and things

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like that you know the people always

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think lead well that's not actually a

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good thing for it um you know actually

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it's very very heavy but still to

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effectively shield a module for say

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years

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uh you you need

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on the order of tens to hundreds of tons

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of passive shielding that's a lot of uh

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mass to lift into orbit

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um active radiation shielding using

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using a magnetic field just like we're

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experiencing right now with earth's

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magnetic field we think is going to be a

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much better way of doing it much lighter

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but it is very complex working with

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superconducting magnets is not uh this

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is not trivial so we're working on

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various concepts of how to configure

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these magnets

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maybe you know use the magnets together

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with passive shielding to optimize the

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performance but the first thing you got

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to realize is that you're never going to

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achieve the sort of radiation levels we

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have here on earth earth is very good to

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us in shielding us

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um

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so we've we've got to come up to an

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acceptable risk an acceptable level you

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know for the amount of time that crew's

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going to spend in space you know we know

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that you know people live on this earth

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at these radiation levels for you know

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60 80 you know 90 years

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if they're going to be in space for say

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two or three years they can accept a

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higher level but what that level is is

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still to be determined

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gotcha so a lot of challenges but a lot

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of really exciting cool technology

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coming up in the future

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yeah

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can't wait to see some of it up there in

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space and then work well ken thank you

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so much for being here and giving us a

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look kinda into the future we'll be sure

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to follow along and look for that rocket