For those who don’t know, VASMIR is an acronym that stands for VAriable Specific Impulse Rocket. For those still a bit confused, it’s a plasma rocket. The design of this rocket started with research in the 1960’s and 1970’s. The research was focused on creating and sustaining a “sun-like plasma substance here on earth”. To create this sun-like substance, material has to be heated to sun-like temperatures, which is in the neighborhood of 5,800 Kelvin (or 9,980 degrees Fahrenheit). Of course, there’s not a container on earth that can hold this substance, so work was done on constructing massive electromagnetic fields to hold it.
Fast-forward a few years, a Ph.D. and the start of an astronaut career, and you have one Dr. Franklin Chang-Diaz, taking this idea of massive electromagnetic fields and transforming it into the next-gen space propulsion system. The unique thing about VASMIR is it’s simplicity in concept (of course, the physics and mathematics behind it are a bit more complicated). Essentially, Dr. Chang-Diaz is taking some inert gas, using strong magnetic fields to transform this gas into a plasma by stripping away electrons and allowing nature to follow its course. This course includes some electrons and ions swirling at various angles, gaining momentum, and finally transferring that circular motion into axial (or longitudinal) motion. At this point, Sir Isaac Newton takes over with basic laws of motion (”equal and opposite reactions and such), and the bigger, heavier ions produce small amounts of moment on the engine, thus propelling it forward.











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