Question: will your work help us explore more sapce?

Charlie Ryan answered on 22 Mar 2011:

hi taab thanks for the question, and your interest in the reasearch i am doing.
In a small way, the research i do will allow us to explore space a little bit more. I am testing a type of mini ion thruster called a colloid thruster, then produces its thrusts by accelerating ions to really high speeds. Although rubbish at moving large spacecraft, these thrusters should be great at moving small spacecraft. By small i mean really small! These tiny spacecraft are only about the size of a shoebox – they’re often called cubesats because they look like metal cubes!! They have been really popular recently, mostly because they offer a way to do simple scientific experiments in space, using not so much money. Each one of these cubesats costs a few million punds – expensive, but nothing comapred to the hundreds of millions that large spacecraft cost!!!
Currently though the cubesats are limited in what they can do – this is a bit because no spacecraft engine can fit on them. But hopefully our thrusters will, and allow these spacecraft to be controlled much more accuretly. this could allow them to go to the moon, and maybe even mars!!
So, if all goes well, the ion thrusters i am testing should allow a little bit more of space to be explored!!