I don’t think you can power the ions with current technology. See this article for power limitations-- 6 kW/kg is required for a 1 month journey, but to be any faster than a Hohmann transfer you’ll still need power in the kW/kg range, which we don’t have the technology for, either solar or nuclear. In this design half your mass will be argon and most of the rest will be solar panels, which is likely worse than Starship mass ratios to Mars. Maybe you can match Starship mass ratios if you do aerocapture, but it seems implausible to aerocapture a whole ring station, and why would you use future technology just to match current technology?
Artificial gravity seems possible with two Starships connected by a cable. You do get more space with a ring station, so maybe it could be luxury or second-generation accommodations.
Cole Nielson-cole is working towards designing fiber composit construction stages for space, he has thoughts about this, in short, microwave lasers as energy transmission and rectifying antennas as energy receivers. But he doesn’t get into the topic of lasers and I’m pretty sure we don’t have that today, right?
I don’t think you can power the ions with current technology. See this article for power limitations-- 6 kW/kg is required for a 1 month journey, but to be any faster than a Hohmann transfer you’ll still need power in the kW/kg range, which we don’t have the technology for, either solar or nuclear. In this design half your mass will be argon and most of the rest will be solar panels, which is likely worse than Starship mass ratios to Mars. Maybe you can match Starship mass ratios if you do aerocapture, but it seems implausible to aerocapture a whole ring station, and why would you use future technology just to match current technology?
Artificial gravity seems possible with two Starships connected by a cable. You do get more space with a ring station, so maybe it could be luxury or second-generation accommodations.
Cole Nielson-cole is working towards designing fiber composit construction stages for space, he has thoughts about this, in short, microwave lasers as energy transmission and rectifying antennas as energy receivers. But he doesn’t get into the topic of lasers and I’m pretty sure we don’t have that today, right?
But I thought the whole interview was great.