Mach propulsion
MACH PROPULSION
An ongoing NASA study is investigating a bizarre propulsion concept
Currently, the only way we can propel vehicles through space is by shooting something out the back of them – whether that’s combustion products, ionised gas molecules accelerated by electromagnetic fields or inert gas heated by nuclear reactions. However, this profoundly limits our ability to explore our galaxy and beyond. We must carry everything with us that we will expel for thrust over an entire journey. To go further or faster needs more reactive mass, and even the mass we are carrying for later in the journey itself needs to be propelled as payload by more reactive mass, leading to impossibly large spaceships. What we need is a new way to propel craft that doesn’t rely on leaving stuff behind that can react against the universe itself, and that is what one NASA study might enable.