TechLink helped to broker a Space Act Agreement, signed in June 2000, between NASA Johnson Space Center and MSE Technology Applications in Butte, MT, for development of advanced rocket technology. This propulsion technology has the potential to cut in half the time required to reach Mars or other plants, thereby reducing astronauts' total exposure to space radiation, lessening the physically damaging time spent in weightlessness, and opening the solar system to human exploration. The agreement triggered widespread national publicity, including an article in the New York Times and coverage on CNN. In addition, it generated telephone calls from many potential clients and investors. MSE¹s senior management subsequently decided to create an Advanced Energy and Aerospace Division. Previously, aerospace had been a small ³orphan² program in the company, which is primarily known for its environmental technology focus. To confirm its commitment to the new aerospace division, MSE announced plans in August to build a new $1 million ultra-high pressure test facility, which will be used to develop and test hypersonic nozzles for aerospace applications. This facility is scheduled to be operational by June 2001. The company¹s aerospace division is expected to grow rapidly, generating new high-tech jobs in Montana¹s economically depressed former mining capital. Dave Micheletti, Vice-President for the new division, credits the agreement that TechLink brokered, and the publicity that TechLink subsequently developed for this project, with the company¹s decision to create an aerospace division and build the new test facility.

A new type of rocket engine under development could halve the travel time between Earth and Mars -- should NASA ever decide to send astronauts there.

''I think it's the technology that's going to take us to Mars,'' said Dr. Franklin Chang-Diaz, a shuttle astronaut and director of the Advanced Space Propulsion Laboratory at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Instead of relying on chemical reactions like conventional rockets, Dr. Chang-Diaz's creation, the Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket, or Vasimr, uses radio waves to heat the fuel and magnetic fields to direct a stream of ultrahot ionized gases.

NASA last week announced that it was collaborating with MSE Technology Applications of Butte, Mont., to develop the Vasimr technology, still years away from use in space. MSE is creating computer models for shaping the magnetic fields that form the engine's nozzle.

Space buffs have long dreamed of sending astronauts to Mars. But that dream, which once looked like the next destination after Moon landings, is still far from reality, stymied by hurdles as much economic and political as technological.

By the early 1950's, the pioneering rocket scientist Wernher von Braun had already worked out a detailed, if fanciful, plan for sending a fleet of 10 colossal spaceships to Mars, powered by conventional chemical rockets.

''We've had the engineering capability with chemical propulsion to undertake a mission to Mars for years, for decades,'' said Les Johnson, who heads the exploration transportation technologies portion of the advanced space transportation program at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.

''What it boils down to,'' Mr. Johnson said, ''is, Is it safe enough? Is it affordable?''

Lifting one pound of material from the Earth's surface into orbit costs about $10,000. With each of von Braun's interplanetary behemoths weighing about 4,000 tons -- or about 10 times the weight of the International Space Station once it is completed -- the price tag of merely lugging the building materials into orbit would run more than $800 billion.

By the time Neil Armstrong stepped on the Moon in 1969, von Braun, then the director of the Marshall Space Center, had devised a slimmed down, more realistic proposal to send a single nuclear powered spaceship to Mars , with the first astronaut stepping onto Martian soil in 1982.

The 1969 design still came in at about 800 tons, and fuel accounted for three-quarters of the mass. The manned missions to Mars never got off the drawing board.

Since then, engineers have whittled away at that mass. A lighter rocket reduces the amount of fuel needed. A more efficient rocket engine also trims fuel requirements.

Rocket engines work by the same principle as throwing a baseball while seated on slippery ice: because of conservation of momentum, the thrower starts sliding in the opposite direction of the baseball, and the harder the throw, the faster the thrower slides.

''Basically, a rocket works by shooting material out the back at high speeds,'' said Dr. Chang-Diaz. ''The higher the speed of the material, the better the rocket is. The speed of the material coming out the back is proportional to the temperature of the material.''

The Vasimr is part of NASA's frugal but continuing research in new rocket technologies.

Chemical rocket engines -- like those of the space shuttle -- throw out propellant at the relatively low temperature of about 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit, and the relatively slow speed of 10,000 miles per hour.

Boosting the temperature and speed of the exiting exhaust in chemical rocket engines is possible, but that can cause another problem: destroying the engine. ''You could try to go to a higher temperature, but it would just melt,'' Dr. Chang-Diaz said. ''There's no known material that can hold these gases.''

Vasimr avoids the melting engine problem by containing and guiding the gases with magnetic fields.

The engine works by injecting the hydrogen fuel into a chamber where it is bombarded by radio waves. ''Like a microwave oven,'' Dr. Chang-Diaz said. The radio waves heat the gas and strip away electrons from the hydrogen atoms, creating a gas of positively charged protons and negatively charged electrons.

The resulting charged particles spiral around in a magnetic field as radio waves further heat them until they escape out the back of the engine at speeds of up to 650,000 m.p.h., or about 60 times as fast as the exhaust from the chemical rockets.

By altering the magnetic fields, the engine's nozzle can be opened up for more thrust as the spaceship enters or leaves orbit and can be throttled back for better fuel efficiency during the trip. Chemical rockets, in contrast, fire much more powerful bursts, but they can only be sustained for minutes. The continuous firing of the plasma engine would cut the astronauts' Earth-to-Mars trip from six months to three months, reducing the astronauts' exposure to damaging cosmic radiation and calcium-draining weightlessness.

According to Dr. Chang-Diaz, the total mass sent to Mars via a Vasimr-powered mission, with one spaceship carrying the astronauts and a second carrying most of the supplies, would be about 400 tons.

Dr. Chang-Diaz has built a small prototype. An in-orbit test of the concept could come as soon as 2004.

The technology can also be used for thrusters on Earth-orbiting satellites. ''The limiting factor in the life of a satellite is its propellant,'' Dr. Chang-Diaz said. ''They run out of gas and they become space junk.''

Michael Conley, deputy manager of the advanced development office at the Johnson Space Center, said, ''The Vasimr really looks promising.''

Vasimr is not the only engine being considered for a mission. NASA studies still consider chemical and solar-powered propulsion as the first option.

Another option revives the notion of nuclear-thermal engines used in von Braun's 1969 plan. In these, hydrogen gas is heated by running it past the core of a nuclear reactor. Other engines with exotic names like pulsed inductive thrusters and magnetoplasmadynamic, or MPD, engines, are also under study.

''Some are more efficient than others,'' said Mr. Johnson of the Marshall Space Center. ''Some might scale better to higher energies. It's too early to say which is going to win the horse race.''

Any of these new technologies would raise a politically sensitive issue for NASA. ''Any engine that is not a chemical rocket will probably require a nuclear reactor,'' Dr. Chang-Diaz said.

A Vasimr engine does not directly use a nuclear reactor, but a rocket powerful enough to send people to Mars would need to tap into a 10-megawatt power source to generate the magnetic fields and radio waves. That is more power than can be produced by solar panels.

The nuclear issue is one reason NASA has not yet embraced the newer engines. ''There could be some socio-political implications if we pick nuclear right away,'' Mr. Conley said. ''If we could do it with solar, we'd like to do it with solar.''

The engine decision also depends on when, if ever, NASA decides to send astronauts to Mars and how quickly it wants to get there. ''If we were going in 10 years, there would be one answer,'' Mr. Johnson said. ''There'd be another if we had 15 years.''

The nuclear-thermal engine would be the easiest and quickest to develop. The Vasimr is the most fuel efficient. Other engines have other benefits and trade-offs.

For the present, the research is not a high priority. NASA spends only a few million dollars a year exploring advanced propulsion systems.

''There is no NASA plan to send people to Mars,'' Mr. Johnson said. ''There is no NASA plan to send people beyond low-Earth orbit. What we're doing is looking at options.''

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