Franklin Chang Diaz Interview

What If A Shuttle Could Get To Mars In Just 39 Days?

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Quick Bio Sage advice can be gleaned indirectly from the words of men who've done amazing things. In this interview series by Jim Clash called "The Right Stuff," we share nuggets of wisdom from great men who've taken big risks in life -- balloonists, test pilots, astronauts, mountain climbers, ocean divers, scientists, Olympians,



What exactly is the right stuff? Other than the name of a famous movie about the space race, it’s a state of mind. The term is a throwback to a time when character counted -- when men routinely risked their lives not to get rich, bloviate or self-aggrandize, but for their country, science, exploration and the joy of pure competition.



Clash, a fellow and director at The Explorers Club, is a seasoned adventurer himself. In reporting for Forbes and other publications over the last two decades, he has skied to the South Pole; driven the



As the co-record holder for number of visits to the International Space Station -- seven shuttle flights from 1986 to 2002, tied with



Born the son of Chinese and Costa Rican parents in 1950, Chang Diaz came to the U.S. at 18 and did his undergraduate studies at the University of Connecticut (BS, mechanical engineering) and later, his graduate work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (PhD, plasma physics, 1977). He was inducted into the Astronaut Hall of Fame in 2012, and was just announced as a winner of



I talked space recently with the adjunct professor of physics and astronomy at Rice University and chief executive of Ad Astra Rocket Co. in Houston, Texas. Following are edited excerpts from a longer conversation. Sage advice can be gleaned indirectly from the words of men who've done amazing things. In this interview series by Jim Clash called "The Right Stuff," we share nuggets of wisdom from great men who've taken big risks in life -- boxers race car drivers -- and come out the better for it.What exactly is the right stuff? Other than the name of a famous movie about the space race, it’s a state of mind. The term is a throwback to a time when character counted -- when men routinely risked their lives not to get rich, bloviate or self-aggrandize, but for their country, science, exploration and the joy of pure competition.Clash, a fellow and director at The Explorers Club, is a seasoned adventurer himself. In reporting for Forbes and other publications over the last two decades, he has skied to the South Pole; driven the Bugatti Veyron at its top speed of 253 mph; flown in a MiG-25 at Mach 2.6 to the edge of space; visited the North Pole twice; and climbed the Matterhorn, 23,000-foot Aconcagua and virgin peaks in Antarctica and Greenland. He has also purchased a ticket from Virgin Galactic Airways to fly into suborbital space.As the co-record holder for number of visits to the International Space Station -- seven shuttle flights from 1986 to 2002, tied with Jerry Ross -- Franklin Chang Diaz knows something about space travel. Retired from NASA since 2005, the astrophysicist is now working on a revolutionary plasma engine that could cut time for manned missions to Mars to as little as 39 days -- versus the eight months it would take using today’s chemical rockets.Born the son of Chinese and Costa Rican parents in 1950, Chang Diaz came to the U.S. at 18 and did his undergraduate studies at the University of Connecticut (BS, mechanical engineering) and later, his graduate work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (PhD, plasma physics, 1977). He was inducted into the Astronaut Hall of Fame in 2012, and was just announced as a winner of The Explorers Club 's Buzz Aldrin Quadrennial Space Award for 2014.I talked space recently with the adjunct professor of physics and astronomy at Rice University and chief executive of Ad Astra Rocket Co. in Houston, Texas. Following are edited excerpts from a longer conversation.

Jim Clash: Did space travel ever get rote for you? On your sixth or seventh flight, for example, was it still exciting?

Franklin Chang Diaz: It’s like when you learn to taste some exotic new dish. The first time, you like it. The second time, you discover a bit more of the taste and learn to appreciate all the nuances and dimensions. So I think you live it much more fully after you become accustomed to it. My last flight was in 2002, and I miss it. Who wouldn’t?

JC: Explain how your revolutionary VASIMR plasma engine would allow for faster Mars flights than today’s chemical rockets.

FCD: A rocket engine is a canister holding high-pressure gas. When you open a hole at one end, the gas squirts out and the rocket goes the other way. The hotter the stuff in the canister, the higher the speed it escapes and the faster the rocket goes. But if it’s too hot, it melts the canister. So what do you do? There are no materials that don’t melt when temperatures reach over a few thousand degrees. Well, there is a trick. When gas gets above 10,000 degrees, it changes to plasma -- an electrically charged soup of particles. And these particles can be held together by a magnetic field. The magnetic field becomes the canister, and there is no limit to how hot you can make the plasma. The engine we are testing at Ad Astra reaches 2 million degrees.

JC: To get to Mars in 39 days, how fast would a rocket need to go? I know the Apollo lunar flights maxed out at about 7 miles per second (mps).

FCD: Remember, you are accelerating the first half of the journey -- the other half you’re slowing so you will reach Mars but not pass it. The top speed with respect to the sun would be about 32 mps. That would require a nuclear power source to heat the plasma to the proper temperature. And that is what's controversial. People are afraid of nuclear power. Chernobyl , Three Mile Island, Japan -- it is a little misunderstood. But if humans are truly going to explore space, we eventually will have to come to grips with the concept.

JC: You are the father of four girls. Do you think any of them has a shot at going to Mars?

FCD: My youngest [Miranda, 18] does, but she has no desire. I am pretty sure, though, that the first person to walk on Mars is already alive today.

JC: Say I want to go to Mars and I’m 18 years old. What’s the best path?