physorg.com — The European Space Agency and the Australian National University have successfully tested a new design of spacecraft ion engine that dramatically improves performance over present thrusters and marks a major step forward in space propulsion capability
Jan 11, 2006 View in Crawl 4
dongiaconiaJan 11, 2006
Not to suggest that this isn't news, but didn't Japan already create and launch something that used an ion engine?
portwineboyJan 12, 2006
from tfa " The test model achieved voltage differences as high as 30kV and produced an ion exhaust plume that travelled at 210,000 m/s, over four times faster than state-of-the-art ion engine designs achieve. This makes it four times more fuel efficient, and also enables an engine design which is many times more compact than present thrusters,"4x faster = 4x more efficient. Needs more testing. Ion Engines need to run like a Novell server behind drywall.
rowanjlJan 12, 2006
Oh, and another thing. I'd like to see digg implement an auto-block on any comments containing the phraze "old news".
ebuntonJan 12, 2006
That's so cool.The engine running looks so futuristic!*glow*
judgedreddJan 12, 2006
Glad to see Europe is catching up. The next thing we will know is China puts a man into orbit! Oh, nevermind.
nozol03Jan 12, 2006
Now all we need to do is put two of these on a fighter... it can be a "Twin Ion Engine" fighter, if you will... although it will be incredibly slow and.... wait - ah, I just made a Star Wars reference. :-P
bendogJan 12, 2006
go australia!