{"id":122352,"date":"2021-05-07T12:23:22","date_gmt":"2021-05-07T19:23:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2021\/05\/scientists-direct-fusion-drive-could-get-us-to-the-edge-of-the-solar-system-in-10-years"},"modified":"2021-05-07T12:23:22","modified_gmt":"2021-05-07T19:23:22","slug":"scientists-direct-fusion-drive-could-get-us-to-the-edge-of-the-solar-system-in-10-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2021\/05\/scientists-direct-fusion-drive-could-get-us-to-the-edge-of-the-solar-system-in-10-years","title":{"rendered":"Scientists: \u201cDirect Fusion Drive\u201d Could Get Us to the Edge of the Solar System in 10 Years"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/scientists-direct-fusion-drive-could-get-us-to-the-edge-of-the-solar-system-in-10-years2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>An international team of researchers have come up with a fusion-based spacecraft thruster that uses a hydrogen isotope called deuterium as a fuel source, as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.popularmechanics.com\/space\/solar-system\/a36037178\/direct-fusion-drive-space-travel-neptune\/\" class=\"\"><em>Popular Mechanics<\/em> reports<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Their \u201cdirect fusion drive,\u201d (DFD) \u2014 as detailed in a yet-to-be-peer-reviewed <a href=\"https:\/\/arxiv.org\/pdf\/2009.12633.pdf\" class=\"\">preprint<\/a> \u2014 is theoretically able to speed up a spacecraft to a blistering 44 kilometers per second, covering the distance from here to Neptune and beyond in less than a decade.<\/p>\n<p>While electric propulsion systems powered by the rays of the Sun have allowed us to explore the inner reaches of our solar system, venturing beyond Jupiter would require gigantic solar arrays, the team argues in its paper.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An international team of researchers have come up with a fusion-based spacecraft thruster that uses a hydrogen isotope called deuterium as a fuel source, as Popular Mechanics reports. Their \u201cdirect fusion drive,\u201d (DFD) \u2014 as detailed in a yet-to-be-peer-reviewed preprint \u2014 is theoretically able to speed up a spacecraft to a blistering 44 kilometers per [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":513,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1514],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-122352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-space-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/513"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122352\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}