ABSTRACT:

Rocket propulsion driven by either thermonuclear fusion or antiproton

annihilation reactions is an attractive concept because of the large amount of
energy released from a small amount of fuel. Charged particles produced in
both reactions can be manipulated electromagnetically making high
thrust/high specific impulse (Isp) operation possible. A comparison of the
physics, engineering, and costs issues involved in using these advanced nuclear
fuels is presented. Because of the unstable nature of the antiproton-proton (p-
p) reaction products, annihilation energy must be converted to propulsive
energy quickly. Antimatter thermal rockets based on solid and liquid fission
core engine designs offer the potential for high thrust (~105 lbf)/high Isp (up to
~2000 s) operation and 6 month round trip missions to Mars. The coupling of
annihilation energy into a high-temperature gaseous or plasma working fluid
appears more difficult, however, and requires the use of heavily shielded
superconducting coils and space radiators for dissipating unused gamma ray
power. By contrast, low-neutron-producing advanced fusion fuels (Cat-DD or
DHe3) produce mainly stable hydrogen and helium reaction products which
thermalize quickly in the bulk plasma. The energetic plasma can be exhausted
directly at high Isp (.105s) or mixed with additional hydrogen for thrust
augmentation. Magnetic fusion rockets with specific powers (ap) in the range
of 2.5 to 10 kW/kg and Isp in the range of 20,000-50,000 s could enable round
trip missions to Jupiter in less than a year. Inertial fusion rockets with ap > 100
kW/kg and Isp > 105s could perform round trip missions to Pluto in less than 2
years. On the basis of preliminary fuel cost and mission analyses, fusion
systems appear to outperform the antimatter engines for difficult
interplanetary missions.

ANTIPROTON ANNIHILATION PROPULSION

A major new form of propulsion has just graduated from the never-never land of science
fiction and has now become a serious topic for scientific and engineering investigation. In the
pastit was called antimatter propulsion, but to emphasize the difference between past fiction
and present reality, I prefer tocall it antiproton annihilation propulsion,1for the use of
antiprotons as the form of the antimatter is crucial tothe use of antimatter for propulsion.
PROPERTIES OF ANTIMATTER

For every particle known to exist, there is a mirror imagetwin particle that has its charge,
spin, and quantum statesreversed from that of normal particles. As shown in Figure 1,the
stable particles that make up atoms--electrons, protons, andneutrons--have mirror twins called
positrons, antiprotons, andantineutrons. Conceptually, these could be combined to
formantiatoms, such as antihydrogen.

When a particle comes near its antiparticle, they attracteach other and annihilate each other
totally converting all oftheir rest mass into energy. When positrons and electronsannihilate
they produce gamma rays, which are difficult toconvert to thrust. On the contrary, when
antiprotons annihilatewith protons, the annihilation process does NOT produce gammarays
immediately. Instead, the products of the annihilation arefrom three to seven particles called
pions. On the average thereare three charged pions and two neutral pions. The neutral
pionshave a very short lifetime and almost immediately convert intotwo high energy gamma
rays. The charged pions have a normalhalf-life or 28 ns. Because they are moving at 94% of
the speedof light, however, their lives are lengthened to 70 ns. Thus,they travel an average of
21 m before they decay. These chargedpions contain 60% of the annihilation energy.

APPLICATION TO PROPULSION
Because of the long lifetime and interaction length of thecharged pions that result from the
annihilation of antiprotonswith protons, it is relatively easy to collect the charged pionsin a
thrust chamber constructed of magnetic fields and to obtainpropulsion from them. As is
shown in Figure 2, the energy in the pionscan then either be used to heat a working fluid,
such ashydrogen, to produce thrust, or the high speed pions themselvescan be directed by a
magnetic nozzle to produce thrust. Evenafter the charged pions decay, they decay into
energetic chargedmuons, which have even longer lifetimes and interaction lengthsfor further
conversion into thrust. Thus, if sufficientquantities of antiprotons could be made, captured,
and stored,then presently known physical principles show that they can beused as a highly
efficient propulsion fuel 1.

Since antimatter does not exist naturally, it must be made,one particle at a time. It is a
synthetic fuel. It will alwaysrequire much (~l04 times) more energy to produce antimatter
thancan be extracted from the annihilation process. Its majoradvantage is that it is a highly
concentrated form of energystorage. A tenth of a milligram, about the size of a singlegrain of
salt, contains the energy of 2 tonnes of the best rocketfuel known, liquid oxygen/liquid
hydrogen. A study that comparedantihydrogen propulsion systems with chemical propulsion
systems2 found that antiproton propulsion could possibly be cost effectivefor space
propulsion. More importantly, it was mission enabling,in that it would allow missions to be
performed that areessentially impossible to perform with chemical fuels.

MAKING ANTIPROTONS

Antimatter in the form of antiprotons is being made today,albeit in small quantities. As is

shown in Figure 3, theantiprotons are generated by sending a high-energy beam ofprotons
into a metal target. When the relativistic protonsstrike the dense metal nuclei, their kinetic
energy, which ismany times their rest-mass energy, is converted into a spray ofparticles,
some of which are antiprotons. A magnetic fieldfocuser and selector separates the antiprotons
from the resultingdebris and directs the antiprotons into a storage ring. Thesecollecting rings
have stored as many as 1012 antiprotons for daysat a time. To give some scale as to what has
already beenaccomplished at these research facilities, 1012 antiprotons havea mass of 1.7 pg.
When this amount of antimatter is annihilatedwith an equivalent amount of normal matter, it
will release300 J, an engineeringly significant amount of energy.
STORING ANTIMATTER

In a recent experiment,3 a team of scientists took the lowenergy antiprotons in one of these
rings, slowed them down toalmost zero velocity, and captured a few hundred antiprotons in
asmall electromagnetic ion trap. Other experiments planned forlate 1987 will attempt to
capture many millions of antiprotons ina trap no bigger than a thermos bottle. The
electromagnetic trapwill be made portable so the antiprotons can be transported toother
laboratories for experiments.

In order to use antiprotons as a propulsion fuel, it will benecessary to find a more compact
method of storage than an iontrap, which is limited to relatively low ion densities. AnotherAir
Force sponsored research program is looking into addingpositrons to the antiprotons in the
ion traps and slowly buildingup "cluster ions" of antihydrogen. These cluster ions are
largeagglomerations of neutral antihydrogen atoms clustered around asingle antiproton ion.
The net negative electric charge of thecluster ion allows it to be kept in the ion trap, yet the
mass ofeach ion can be increased until we have an ice crystal withenough charge that it can
be electrostatically levitated withouttouching the walls of the cryogenically cooled trap

ANTIMATTER ENGINES

The use of antihydrogen to power antimatter engines is fairlystraightforward. The small

antihydrogen microcrystals, eachweighing about a microgram and having the energy content
of 20 kgof LOX/hydrogen, would be extracted electromagnetically from thestorage trap,
directed by electric fields down a vacuum line withshutters (to maintain the trap vacuum) ,
then electrostaticallyejected with a carefully selected velocity into the rocketchamber, where
the antiprotons would annihilate with the reactionfluid, heating it up to provide high thrust at
high specificimpulse. The annihilation cross section increases dramaticallyat low relative
velocity, so the annihilation process occursmostly at the center of the chamber.

Designs of rocket engines to use antimatter are well underwayat a number of engineering
laboratories. One simple design4 is based on the NERVA nuclear rocket, with the nuclear
reactorreplaced with a tungsten heat exchanger core. The reactionproducts (both gammas and
pions) would be stopped in the tungstenand the energy used to heat hydrogen gas passing
though the heatexchanger. This engine would use 13 µg/s of antiproton fuel toproduce a
specific impulse of 1100 s at a thrust level of4.4x105 N (100,000 lb) for a power level of 2.7
GW. Such anengine could take 100 tonnes of payload to Mars and back in sixmonths (only
three months each way) with a mass ratio of 4. Bycomparison, a LOX/hydrogen system
would require a mass ratio of18 and would take 12 months to get there and 9 months to
getback.

Studies have also started on magnetic bottle reaction chambers5 that have the potential of
attaining higher specificimpulse than engines limited by the thermal properties of
matter.Analysis of plasma transport coefficients has identified twoparameter regimes of
practically lossless operation of a magneticnozzle with a pure hydrogen plasma. The one of
interest for anantimatter-heated hydrogen plasma thruster is optically thick,with a density of
3xl019 ions/cm3, a temperature of 2 eV(23,000K), a magnetic field of 5 T, a throat dimension
of 1 m,and a pressure of 1000 psi (67 atm).

PLANS FOR ANTIPROTON ANNIHILATION PROPULSION

Because antiproton propulsion promises a major advance inspace propulsion capability, the
recently completed Air ForceSystems Command Project Forecast II study recommended that
theAir Force start a new program in antimatter propulsion. As adirect result of the Project
Forecast II recommendations, the AirForce Astronautics Laboratory at Edwards AFB in
California hasreorganized its advanced propulsion activities and formed a newproject called
ARIES (Applied Research In Energy Storage). Theproject has two major thrusts - chemically
bound excited statesand antimatter. The Air Force Office of Scientific Research hasinitiated a
new program on antimatter research in the Physicaland Geophysical Sciences Branch under
Col. Hugo Weichel. TheProgram Manager for Antimatter is Maj. John Prince, who
evaluatesunsolicited proposals for research on antimatter sciences. InEurope, an Antimatter
Research Team (ART) has been formed atTelespazio, SpA per Ie Comumicazioni Spaziali in
Italy. Theirresearch work6 will cover antiproton and positron production andstorage, and
engine simulations, leading ultimately to technologydemonstrations

The number of workshops concerned with the science andtechnology of antiprotons is

growing with each passing year. Ihave been involved in one way or another with most of
thefollowing workshops. The Workshop on the Design of a Low EnergyAntimatter Facility
in the USA was held at the University ofWisconsin-Madison from 3-5 October 1985. The
Antimatter Physicsat Low Energy Workshop was held at Fermi National
AcceleratorLaboratory, Batavia, Illinois from 10-12 April 1986. The AGSTime-Separated
Antiproton Beam Workshop was held at BrookhavenNational Laboratory, Upton, New York
from 18-22 August 1986. TheCooling, Condensation, and Storage of Hydrogen Cluster
IonsWorkshop was held at SRI International, Menlo Park, Californiafrom 8-9 January 1987.
The Antiproton Science and TechnologyWorkshop was held at RAND Corporation from 2l-
22 April l987. TheWorkshop on Intense Positron Beams was held at Idaho
NationalEngineering Laboratory, Idaho Falls, Idaho from 18-19 June 1987.Additional
planned workshops will be the IV LEAR (Low EnergyAntiproton Ring) Workshop to be held
in Villars, Switzerland from6-13 September 1987, and the 2nd Antiproton Science
andTechnology Workshop to be held at RAND Corporation, Santa MonicaCalifornia from 6-
8 October 1987.

If the next decade of experimental research on cooling andtrapping of antiprotons, the growth
and storage of antihydrogen,and the design studies of antimatter rockets and antimatter-
powered missions shows promise, then engineering studies will commence on the design and
ultimate fabrication of an antiprotonfactory capable of producing about a microgram a year
(comparedto the present nanogram per year) . A microgram of antiprotonswith usable energy
of 100 MJ could power a test stand run of a1 MW feasibility demonstration rocket engine for
100 s. At thatpoint a lot more would be known about the engineeringfeasibility, cost
effectiveness, and desirability of antiprotonannihilation propulsion. Then a decision could be
made whetherto proceed with the construction of an antiproton factory thatcould produce the
hundreds of milligrams a year needed to run aspace program. Such a factory could be
designed to be self-powering, but would require a capital investment comparable tobuilding a
10 GW power plan.