Deep space travel is an engineering feat. Not only does it require a lot of precision but patience too. Those who are mislead by the movie represented ideas of space travel should know the fact that unlike the movies, deep space travel is extremely slow because the outer regions of the Solar System take decades to reach.
Did you know that Voyager 1 took over 30 years to reach the interstellar space? 30 years? Isn’t this a very long time? And a lot can be done if a way could be found to cut short the time spent on travel time because then this time could be utilised for further research and study on the same project. Considering all these things, scientists at NASA’s Marshall Flight Centre in Huntsville, Alabama are testing a new technology that could cut that time by two thirds.
The new technology is based on a novel concept called the Heliopause Electrostatic Rapid Transit System (HERTS) or E-sail. It is a new form of propellant-less propulsion that relies on a series of wires to catch the solar winds. The scientists claim that the new technology can reduce the travel time from Earth to the heliopause about 123 AU (18 billion km, 11 billion mi) from the Sun- to less than 10 years. The E-sail concept consists of a small unmanned payload that contains instruments and a power source.
