With space travel escaping the eye of the general public and the government in terms of funding projects, the dream of deep space travel in the mind of engineers, astronomers and space enthusiasts seems to be relatively squashed. However, since 1998, funding for NASA has gradually been increasing. According to The Balance’s economic reports on the United States’ fiscal budget for 1998, NASA’s budget has increased by 85%, from 13.6 billion to 25.2 billion in 2021.
However, all of this talk of economics is really just a dreamer's fuel for a movement towards deep space travel and the developments of potential power sources to sustain high speeds through space while having enough energy to do so.
The common power sources for current spaceships is mainly external fuel that detaches from the craft as it lifts into space. Inside the tanks, there’s a mixture of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen that combusts to create a reaction that propels the spacecraft into orbit. The main issue however, besides pollutants from the reaction, is that the fuel does eventually run out, which means that it’s not sustainable for deep space travel, as there is a loss of energy problem that comes along with the use of these fuel tanks.
Sources like Fuel Cells and Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators (both of which have been in use for a long while) have also been fairly reliable in space missions. Fuel Cells are composed of a membrane with Hydrogen and Oxygen on opposite sides. The Hydrogen and Oxygen combine together in a reaction that both generates energy and produces water as the sole waste product. Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators use the combustion of an isotope of Plutonium to fuel the spacecraft, but with limited Plutonium in reach and certainly not enough to keep the craft sustainably moving through space, this source (without large modifications) would fail in the long run.
Solar power is another common power source that you see in structures that orbit the Earth like satellites tasked with reconnaissance, communications and surveillance, as well as more space related objects like telescopes to look into the cosmos. This power source may not be 100% efficient from the perspective of actually getting the craft into space, however the sustainability of solar power and solar sails (which use solar winds to help propel the craft through space) help the spacecraft to slowly continue to accelerate through space and have a sustainable energy source throughout its journey. The main issue with solar power is that the efficiency of solar panels and their conversion of energy would have to be adjusted to accommodate long distance space travel.
As recently as 2018 however, NASA has come up with a potentially huge breakthrough in terms of power for space travel. At the beginning of 2018, they discussed their development of a small fission reactor that could be used for sustainable energy not only for spacecraft, but for the possibility of colonization as well. This source is also specifically developed for use over long periods of time, so it can sustain the impacts of space travel and terrains on planets like Mars.
All of this development is more than enough to keep the dream of space travel moving along at a pretty decent rate, regardless of the idea’s popularity in the consciousness of the general public, the government or even countries across the world.
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