Ever since NASA announced plans to send a manned mission to Mars in the 2030s and Hollywood got in on the action with "The Martian," the Red Planet has loomed large in our collective imagination. Now, thanks to a video released by NASA, we can add a new bit of heat to Mars fever -- the idea that we could get to the planet in just a few days.
"There are recent advances that take this from science fiction to science reality," scientist Philip Lubin says in the video, titled "Going Interstellar." "There is no known reason why we can not do this."
Lubin is a physics professor working at the University of California at Santa Barbara's Experimental Cosmology Group. Last year he and his team were awarded a proof-of-concept grant from NASA to investigate the use of photonic propulsion to power interplanetary spacecraft.
In that work, Lubin is investigating shooting Earth-orbiting lasers at wafer-thin space vessels to propel them to greater speeds through the vacuum of space. The photons in the laser light would literally push the vessel along, much in the way the solar sail being tested plans to use photons from the sun for propulsion. This is called electromagnetic acceleration and can achieve vastly quicker speeds than chemical propulsion, such as that produced by rocket fuel.
To read more and view the video, click here.