Frame: the TV series Star Trek
American physicists, including a former employee of the laboratory of Fermilab, has launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for the construction of the engine on the antimatter. It is reported by Popular Science.
Gerald Jackson (Gerald Jackson) and Stephen Howe (Steven Howe) hope to use for space flight energy that occurs by the mutual annihilation of matter and atoms of antimatter. However, this source still remains elusive for flight to the nearest stars in the spaceship designs of Jackson will require 17 grams of antihydrogen. In this case, the accelerators of elementary particles give while antimatter only in trace amounts, and the cost per gram is not less than 100 billion dollars.
Remain and security issues. When hitting the wall of the container one gram of antimatter will be an explosion of power equal to the explosion of the atomic bomb. While to hold the antimatter in “the trap”, the scientists managed to a maximum of one thousand seconds.
On a plan of Jackson, antimatter must run reaction of fission: the uranium splits into two groups of particles. One will fly forward, hitting the space sail and moving it forward (like the wind). Another will fly in the direction opposite to the movement of the device, creating an additional source of thrust.
After failing to convince NASA and major investors to Finance their project, Jackson and Howe decided to turn to crowdfunding. For a start they plan to collect 200 thousand dollars for the creation of a model that will help to measure the actual amount of thrust from the engine.
In case of success, physicists will turn to big business for 100 million dollars for the construction of the prototype apparatus. However, even the most optimistic forecasts of the starship in antimatter will embark on its first flight at the earliest after 250 years.
