For humans to travel the solar system, we first need to be liberated from Earth鈥檚 orbit. High power electric propulsion and nuclear propulsion systems offer promise in getting us off Earth, but how do we practically test these powerful engines on the ground?
Physicist and engineer , who thinks hard on how to mimic space travel on earth, will give the fall 2023 Bethe Lecture on this topic. Foster鈥檚 talk, 鈥溾 will be Wednesday, Nov. 15 at 7:30 p.m. in Schwartz Auditorium, Rockefeller Hall, and is open to the public. The lecture will be .
鈥淭he energetic plumes these rockets produce interact with the walls of vacuum chambers, which are supposed to simulate space-like conditions, leading to high backsputter rates and elevated chamber pressure,鈥 said Foster, professor of nuclear engineering and radiological sciences at the University of Michigan. 鈥淚f these problems are unavoidable, how do we account for these processes when interpreting the test data and then extrapolating to space operation?鈥
In the lecture, Foster will discuss the challenge of testing high power electric propulsion on the ground, unpacking the many physical processes that can affect the interpretation of on-orbit performance. He will also survey past ground test methods of characterizing nuclear thermal rockets鈥攚hich are prohibited today鈥攁nd current approaches being posed to test, understand and characterize performance of these engines on the ground.
Foster鈥檚 research at Michigan focuses on space propulsion, including the development of novel ion and nuclear thermal rocket engines. He also investigates environmental plasma processing, such as terrestrial plasma-based water purification and plasma-driven depolymerization to address the problem of plastic waste.
鈥淧rof. Foster鈥檚 work in plasma physics is remarkable in its breadth, ranging from fundamental plasma studies to real-world, practical applications with far-reaching societal impact,鈥 said , associate professor of physics in the 麻豆视频 and 麻豆视频 (A&S).
Throughout his academic and professional career, Foster has been involved in electric propulsion (EP) research. After receiving his Ph.D. (1996) in applied physics from the University of Michigan鈥揂nn Arbor, he served as the plasma diagnostics postdoctoral researcher for the University of Wisconsin鈥檚 Center for Plasma-Aided Manufacturing.
He later joined the On-Board Propulsion group at NASA Glenn to study advanced, plasma-based propulsion. He served as principal investigator for the ion thrusters then slated to be used on the Jupiter Icy Moon Orbiter mission. Foster left NASA in 2006 to join the nuclear engineering department at Michigan.
As part of the Hans Bethe Lecture series, Foster will give a physics colloquium talk, 鈥淗ow Plasma-Based Water Purification May Save Us from Ourselves,鈥 Monday, Nov. 13 at 4 p.m. in Schwartz Auditorium, Rockefeller Hall; and a LEPP Joint Seminar, 鈥淭he Physics of Advanced Space Propulsion: A Survey of Nuclear Rocket Technologies,鈥 Tuesday, Nov. 14 at 1:30 p.m. in Rm. 401, Physical 麻豆视频 Building.
The , established by the Department of Physics and the 麻豆视频 and 麻豆视频, honors Bethe, Cornell professor of physics from 1936 until his death in 2005. Bethe won the 1967 Nobel Prize in physics for his description of the nuclear processes that power the sun.
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