Do you hope to test your mini spacecraft in space one day?

Question: Do you hope to test your mini spacecraft in space one day?
- Keywords:
  hope,
  mini,
  space,
  spacecraft,
  test
Asked by effy to Charlie on 14 Mar 2011.
- Charlie Ryan answered on 14 Mar 2011:
  
  oh yeah!! But sadly there a lot of things to do before i (well really we – i.e. the large group of people i am part of) get there. The type of mini spacecraft thruster i am working on (called a colloid thruster – a type of spacecraft ion thruster), is pretty new and has never been tested in space. So hence i (note the ‘i’ at this point!) have to test the thruster a LOT in a space-like atmosphere. This is a vacuum chamber – a metal tube from which the air is sucked.
  So i guess by the time my (sorry, our) mini-thruster gets to space, it will already have been tested to perfection. We hope to put it into space within 5 years.

Question: Do you hope to test your mini spacecraft in space one day?