NASA funds Direct Drive Fusion Propulsion:
"The Direct Fusion Drive (DFD) concept provides game-changing
propulsion and power capabilities that would revolutionize interplanetary
travel. DFD is based on the Princeton Field-Reversed Configuration
(PFRC) fusion reactor under development at the Princeton Plasma
Physics Laboratory."
See:
http://nextbigfuture.com/2016/04/nas...ve-fusion.html
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NASA testing electric solar sail for near term
propulsion 3-7 times faster than Pluto Express:
"Testing has started at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in
Huntsville, Alabama, on revolutionary propulsion system called the
electric sail. Relatively conservative designs could send spacecraft at
100-200 km/second by utilizing solar wind traveling at 400 to 750
kilometers per second.
The test results will provide modeling data for the Heliopause
Electrostatic Rapid Transit System (HERTS). The proposed HERTS
E-Sail concept, a propellant-less propulsion system, would harness
solar wind to travel into interstellar space."
See:
http://nextbigfuture.com/2016/04/nas...-sail-for.html
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Stephen Hawking and a Russian Billionaire Want to
Build an Interstellar Starship:
"In a joint announcement at the One World Observatory in New York
City today, Milner and Stephen Hawking unveiled Breakthrough
Starshot, a $100 million research and engineering program seeking to
lay the foundations for an eventual interstellar voyage. The first step
of the program involves building light-propelled “nanocrafts” that can
travel at relativistic speeds—up to 20 percent the speed of light. At
such high velocities, the robotic spacecraft would pass Pluto in three
days and reach our nearest neighboring star system, Alpha Centauri,
just over 20 years after launch."
See:
http://gizmodo.com/a-russian-billion...ild-1770467186