Is it possible to use a nuclear fusion reactor as propulsion for a spaceship?

Anselmo

Can a large amount of thrust be produced by a nuclear fusion Tokamak reactor or a magnetic mirror? Since hydrogen is plentiful this would be the ideal fuel source. And since fusion generates a lot of energy, this would be ideal for propulsion.



Van Horne

It might be the case in the future. But I doubt i will happened real soon. You see, in the case of nuclear fusion reactor, such as, as u said, Tokamak, we still have a major problem to solve. Did u noticed that everywhere in the world, we still using the fission power reactor, even though fusion reactor did exist a few decade ago. Why? Because, nearly all the fusion reactors are build based on magnetic confinement. That is a major problem, for reactor, needless to say, in a space propulsion. We need a very strong magnetic field so that the huge amount of energy did not expand out of control, or else the reactor will melt. To build very strong magnetic field needs a super strenght structure to hold the magnetic field. in engineeringm strength means material and size. The most practical material would be steel. But it also need a massive amount of steel to withstand the field. Second problem that really hold us back from using fusion power reactor is, sadly to say, we ahve no idea how to extract the energy. Because the energy is in the formed of heat, and the heat is located at the core, we cannot do anything. How can we turn the heat into electricity? Conventional fission power reactor used water or other fluids to absorb the heat and turn it into steam which later on will spin turbines. But in fusion reactor, we cannot put water etc. into the core, because the core must only contains hydrogen. Even if we really can add up water into the core, we must remember that we are dealing with temperature that can easily evaporated almost anything, even metal. That's why we used magnetic field to confine the heat within the core, so the reactor won't melt. To be used as nuclear propulsion, we actually have ones these days. We used xenon to eject high velocities electrons to can propel the spaceship. But it is relatively slow, compare to conventional fuel-powered spaceship, but the good thing is, it can last for years, whereas the later might be used up after a few months.



Beaumont

they look at that years ago, still not near light speed.



Newport

Yes, a light sail is a device that uses the output of a fusion reactor (the sun).Additional note on the ion engine. The thrust would not be high, but could be very long duration. The end result is that it can still get you up to a pretty good speed.



Dixon Lane-Meadow Creek

I think it is possible because nuclear fusion will give it the power that regular fuel gives it



Troy

Yes it is possible. Now all they have to do is come up with a working fusion reactor (that produces more power than it takes to keep it going). THEN they have to make it small enough, light enough, and robust enough for space travel. So, it will be a 'while' before we see fusion engines in space. The power generated from the fusion reactor could be used to heat hydrogen fuel for thrust out a nozzle, or it could be used to generate electricity to create and accelerate ions for an ion engine. It could also be used as a power source for some other more exotic MHD type or hybrid ion/MHD engines in the works, currently..