Plasma jet engines promise a future of fuel-free, electrically driven flight, but the technology faces a stubborn obstacle that no amount of enthusiasm can wish away. Ionizing air to generate thrust ...

The Aerospace Corporation has been advancing a concept for a restartable solid rocket motor ...

The world’s heavy reliance on fossil fuels, especially for transportation, has left a deep mark on both the planet and public health. Burning these fuels releases a flood of greenhouse gases, which ...

Being more efficient and more powerful than chemical rockets, plasma engines are seen as the future of human spaceflight. While NASA-backed plasma rocket projects aim for travel times to Mars be just ...

In the endless pursuit of faster, more efficient travel, engineers have been cooking up all kinds of new forms of propulsion. One of the most interesting to emerge in the last decade is the electric ...

The big picture: In deep-space travel, the race is no longer about who has the biggest rocket – it's about who can build the smartest plasma engine. As the competition to reach Mars intensifies, ...

Ok, the way I'm understanding plasma engines is bascially they energize hydrogen fuel so hot that it ionizes the hydrogen. Then it pases the ionized gases into another chamber that uses radio waves to ...