Z-Pinch Effect To Shorten Trip To Mars

Universe Today article reports a trip to Mars can be shortened from 30 weeks to just eight weeks time. University of Alabama at Huntsville researchers will team with Marshall Space Flight Center and Boeing to lay groundwork for a nuclear fusion propulsion system.  UAH researchers refer to principle as a slapshot of plasma energy to a two inch puck of lithium deuteride to supply greater propulsion than provided currently by more conventional rockets.  The nuclear fusion reaction is called the Z-pinch effect.  In the Universe Today article,  UAH researchers refer to new system as not that different from conventional rocket propulsion, "..a pulsed fusion engine is pretty much the same thing as a regular rocket engine: a 'flying tea kettle.' Cold material goes in, gets energized and hot gas pushes out. The difference is how much and what kind of cold material is used, and how forceful the push out is." 


Perhaps, of more interest, an observation made in article:

The key component to the UAH research is the Decade Module 2 — a massive device used by the Department of Defense for weapons testing in the 90s. Delivered last month to UAH (some assembly required) the DM2 will allow the team to test Z-pinch creation and confinement methods, and then utilize the data to hopefully get to the next step: fusion of lithium-deuterium pellets to create propulsion controlled via an electromagnetic field “nozzle”.

Twenty years later, Defense donates DM2 for general scientific research. It does cross the mind it reveals another secret program is far enough ahead - already utilizing the next generation of equipment - to provide a hand-me-down?  Zen Gardner provided a good example recently in "Secret Space Program Shows Its Hand "of two hand-me-down military Hubbles with far better resolution than NASA's current space telescope. News releases hint at a secret space program decades ahead of what we can read about in the mainstream media!