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This Defense Intelligence Reference Document, dated 1 November 2010, was produced by the Defense Intelligence Agency under its Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications (AAWSA) Program. It surveys propulsion technologies that include chemical, ion, and nuclear fission rockets, fusion schemes, aneutronic fusion, and antimatter propulsion. It also covers radiation shielding and speculates on research needs over the next 30 years for missions from low Earth orbit to Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and Alpha Centauri. The document concludes that aneutronic fusion promises to be an important mechanism for future space propulsion.
C ·p ~ "~ ~ ~ E UNCLASSIFIED/ ;reR: 8Pflll.t.k Wi&i '"" Y 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 o~-----------------------~ II 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 Figure 2. Mass Ratio (m/mo} Increases as Objects Approach the Speed of Light. ( 1.4) Equation 1.4 is plotted in Figure 2; we see that as an object's velocity approaches light speed its mass approaches infinity. Coupled with this, we see that as mass approaches infinity, the energy required to move the mass also approaches infinity. Thus, it would take an infinite amount of energy to accelerate an object to the speed of light. Equations 1.2 and 1.3 indicate that the best propulsion system would use the least amount of propellant but exhaust it at the highest possible velocity. Therefore, the rocket engine that has the highest exhaust velocity requires that the rocket be the least massive or carry the least amount of propellant. Unfortunately, this combination corresponds to the minimum efficiency in terms of rocket power. The point here is that for spaceflight to anywhere other than near destinations, our present rocket technology is insufficient. 2 UNCLASSIFIED/,'F8A 8FFI&I.«1k Wi&i a••k>/
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Report, from the dia collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 50 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.