Space Propulsion for Sustained Human Expansion into the Solar System
Abstract
Recent advances in chemical propulsion have brought a revolution in the ability to economically access near-Earth orbit. As the world turns its eye on returning to the Moon and then on to Mars, understanding the factors to overcome from a technical perspective of space propulsion is important. First, readers are provided with motivation for why sustained missions to Mars is not as simple as sending a rocket to the planet (but still a momentous step for humanity). Next, near-term technologies and their capabilities are discussed along merits and limitations. Finally, we are in one of those exciting inflection points of human exploration and some suggestions are provided on how we must continue enabling exploration through the lens of space propulsion technology maturation.
Keywords
Space, Propulsion, Nuclear, Engineering, Technology Development
Author Biography
Ryan Gosse
Dr. Ryan Gosse is the Hypersonics Program Area Lead for the Florida Applied Research in Engineering (FLARE) lab that is part of the Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering. He has over 15 years of experience as an aerothermal and propulsion fluid dynamics expert. He is a recent NASA NIAC fellow for focus on development of advanced nuclear fission space propulsion concepts. He is an AIAA associate fellow and serves on the AIAA Thermophysics Technical Committee. He was the principal investigator of one of the largest Department of Defense High Performance Computing Modernization Program’s Frontier Projects enabling exa-scale computations of hypersonic systems.