This electromagnetic container for antimatter, called a "Penning trap", was built at Pennslyvania State University to learn how to harness the power of antimatter.
This electromagnetic container for antimatter, called a "Penning trap", was built at Pennslyvania State University to learn how to harness the power of antimatter.
Instead of using only antimatter as the principle reactor for thrust an engine could be designed which would use antimatter as a catalyst to sustain a micro fission/fusion reaction which could then propel a spacecraft at up to a tenth of the speed of light or .1c. An engine based on this technology would require much less antimatter than the pure antimatter alternative. The technology and facilities are now in place to demonstrate this reaction, Dr. Frisbee says, but not the funding. Currently a new Penning trap (Mark 2) is being built at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama. This trap is expected to contain anywhere from one billion to one trillion antiprotons (one picogram) for weeks. Mark 2, Dr. Frisbee explains, could contain enough antiprotons to thrust an experimental prototype engine in space using the proposed antimatter catalyzed micro fission/fusion reaction. This would shorten a trip to Mars down to three or four months rather than years and a roundtrip to Jupiter in about one or two years. Dr. Frisbee says he believes that this is a goal for a twenty-year timeframe. However, because of the enormous amounts of antimatter required for a "pure" antimatter engine for fast interstellar missions it is obvious that trips in a ten year time frame to our nearest solar system, Alpha Centauri will have to wait considerably longer. Dr. Frisbee speculated antimatter production might be optimized with facilities in space or on our Moon where a constant vacuum would be easy to maintain and placed at safer distances where very large amounts of antimatter could be kept far away from those on earth. On a large magnitude antimatter represents some dangerous obstacles as Dr. Frisbee explains, "because not only do you need to worry about the potential destructive energy contained, but also the radiation that such an engine would emit." A protective shield would have to be devised, or a structure to place the crew far away from the radioactive engines such as is suggested by the Pennsylvania State proposed interstellar precursor mission, ICAN 2. Not only would engineers have to keep the crew protected, but also the magnets used to direct thrust would have to be shielded in order to prevent their destruction.
With all this future planning and speculation Dr. Robert Frisbee jokes he is a government funded science fiction writer, but he makes the point that all these ideas are fiction until someone, or some group puts events into motion to make them a reality. He sees himself as a technology optimist who believes progress will host many benefits for mankind. He watched the space race turn from fiction to reality in a very short period of time and with that all the spin-offs those technologies created. Back to News
Pennsylvania State University-Antimatter
Interstellar Propulsion Concepts
