Future Starship Engines

To travel, the verb that expresses the journey from point A to point B. If our earth is point A and the nearest galaxy Andromeda (to our Milky Way Galaxy) is point B; the time to travel that distance while moving at the speed of light is estimated at 2.5 million years. The highest speed humans have travelled with the chemical thruster starship engine is estimated at 40,000 km/h by Apollo 10 in 1969. To travel at the speed of light, our starship engines would have to get to the speed of 300,000 km/s. To comprehend that is to comprehend that humans from earth will not get to the Andromeda galaxy either traverse greater distance with traditional chemical thruster starship engines however those engines are advanced either developed in future time. Therefore, humans will have to develop starship engines that derive thrust acceleration from different physics theories as to how space time continuum travel can occur either reinterpret the space time continuum itself. Newtons third law states that for every action (force) there is an equal and opposite reaction. This is the physics principle upon which human thruster engines operate. To emit hot gas either ions from the rear of a starship thruster will produce an equal opposite force emitted from the front of the starship in the form of acceleratory thrust. To date, effort from this world to explore space has developed with starships that travel the space time continuum with chemical thruster engines.

Chemical Thruster Engine

Traditional chemical thruster work by a spaceship rocket mixing a fuel propellant (solid, gas either liquid) with the oxidizer (solid, gas either liquid chemical agent which provides the oxygen needed to burn the fuel) in the combustion chamber which creates an exothermic chemical reaction to exert high temperature high pressure gas out of the rocket exhaust nozzle which provides the spaceship acceleratory thrust.  The fuel propellant and the oxidizer are stored with separate container that each filter their fuel to the combustion chamber. The combustion chamber works by igniting the mixed fuel/oxidiser with a spark plug at the top of the combustion chamber where the mixed fuel/oxidiser are injected into the chamber. Staged Combustion engines are more advanced chemical thruster engines where there are combustion chambers called preburners before the main combustion chamber. Preburners have their own sparkplug that ignite a measure from the fuel/oxidiser supply to spin turbines that power the pumps that pump most of the fuel/oxidiser into the main combustion chamber. The multiple stage combustion cycle is more fuel efficient as it allows all the fuel to eventually reach the main combustion chamber.

Space Agencies and Universities are researching, working toward creating new advanced different starship engines that increase starship top speed, fuel efficiency, agility + steerability. However, these engines still operate upon the governing principle from Newtons third law. Ion thruster engines either nuclear propulsion engines are the most advanced engines that scientists from earth have developed.

Ion Thruster Engine

Ion thruster engines work by emitting ions from a starship to generate acceleratory thrust. The essential method how these engines operate is a propellant fuel in the form of a neutral gas (krypton, argon, or iodine) is bombarded with electrons from electric charge produced by a cathode. The electrons produced by the cathode are accelerated toward an anode via the potential difference between the cathode to anode therefore accelerating the electrons toward the neutral gas located toward the anode. The electrons that hit the propellant neutral gas remove electrons therefore creating positively charged ions that are then electrostatically accelerated out of the starship engine to create acceleratory thrust. Examples of ion thruster engines include Hall Effect thruster engines either Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (VASIMR) engines.

Nuclear Thermal Propulsion Engine

Nuclear propulsion engines have already been utilised by maritime vessels from the 1950s onward. The first nuclear reactor submarine engine put to sea in 1955 with the US submarine USS Nautilus. The main advantages from nuclear propulsion are fuel efficiency with reactors operating as self sustainable energy sources and higher engine energy potential from the energy output generated from nuclear reactors splitting the nucleus of an atom into two nuclei (fission). Nuclear starship engineering involves two main types of nuclear propulsion from nuclear fission (nuclear fusion engines remain theoretical at this time); (1) Nuclear Thermal Propulsion (NTP) and (2) Nuclear Electric Propulsion (NEP). Nuclear Thermal Propulsion (NTP) involves a fission reactor heating a pressurised liquid propellant (liquid hydrogen) to high temperature which then expands out of the thruster transferring thermal energy to kinetic energy in the form of acceleratory thrust. Nuclear Electric Propulsion (NEP) involves fission reactors generating vast thermal energy (heat) that is converted to electricity which in turn ionises the engine propellant gas (krypton, zenon). Positively charged ions from this propellant gas are then electromagnetically accelerated out of the engine thruster where the mass of the gas ions emitted from the thruster create kinetic energy in the form of the engines acceleratory thrust.