current progect for space travel

Currently there are a few project being worked on for space travel worth mentioning. one is taking place in Russia. The Russians are currently looking at a space craft called the Clipper which replace its Soyuz. The Clipper will cary 6 men opposed to the Soyuz's 3 and will be capable of making regular flights to the moon and mars providing a reliable nuclear propulsion system is designed. It will also be more beneficial for bringing cargo to the international space station since it can carry up to 12 metric tones opposed to the 3 in the other.

where would we go?

so what if we actually do overcome the challenge of interstellar space travel, where would we go? would go to our nearest galaxy Andromeda, or set out for new solar systems. It seems like a second earth may not be so far off, there is talk of other water/dirt planets on the outer reaches of our solar system. they are roughly the same size as our earth and are near the Oort cloud. the problem is that they are frozen, so i guess all we need to is defrost one... yet another challenge. but what about other planetary systems, isn't there anywhere else in the universe that is as favorable as earth? one potential find was Gliese 581 about 120 trillion miles away. the star there is a lot smaller (artistic view of gilese 581)
and dimmer then ours but it could possibly be habitable according to NASA astrobiology expert Chris McKay. Its temperature and contents are similar to that of earth, but no life is expected to be on it. But still, this planet has the possibility to be habitable, its situation is still no where near as favorable as earth. from my research, no planet like Earth has ever been discovered, making me feel a bit smaller in this universe.

harvesting positrons

in the last blog, i mentioned briefly the idea of using anti matter as fuel. Positrons are an antimatter form of an electron. the only difference is that it is positively charged opposed to negatively charged. there are conventional methods to containing these, which include combining them with anti neutrons and anti protons making anti atoms and molecules. since these have a charge, containment is made possible with electromagnetic fields which keep them all together. Harvesting positrons is harder to do. since there are far fewer of these in the universe then electrons, harvesting is a lot like drilling for oil or separating the H3O compounds from H2O. One man by the name of James Bickford of Draper Laboratory (Cambridge, MA), believes that if we use a wire net like device with positively charged outer layers will deflect protons and attract anti-protons and positrons. It is estimated that at any given time there is 10 mg of positrons in the earths atmosphere but much more then that exist in the jovian planets. It would seem that in order to pursue the idea of anti-matter for interstellar travel we still have to make it to the other planets. I guess anti-matter will have to wait and we will have to depend on fusion and space sails to get us to the other planets first.