this post was submitted on 03 May 2026
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What matters is the effective exhaust velocity. For chemical rockets it's 3 km/s. The article doesn't seem to mention it?
On top of that, ion drive travel is notoriously slow. So it's not good for human travel because you would need more life support system for the longer journey, including more food and water, which makes the rocket heavier and is thus undesirable. It would only be useful for cargo transport where it doesn't matter whether it spends 6 months or 3 years in space.
If they start the Mars mission from LEO then the ion drive can supplement a small fuel burner or slingshot.