Circa 2021
With SpaceX continuing the testing phase for Starship and enthusiasm spreading for an actual crewed flight to Mars, an interesting magnetic thrust rocket concept conceived by physicist Fatima Ebrahimi at the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) might make the mission much more cost effective.
The feasibility of safe, sustainable propulsion systems that will outperform traditional chemical-based rocket engines on deep space voyages, not only in our own solar system but someday perhaps to a distant galaxy outside the Milky Way, is foremost on astrophysicists’ minds.