Talk-Polywell.org

Paragraph below is taken from the article "Chalie Bolden's vision for NASA"
http://blogs.nature.com/news/thegreatbe ... r_nas.html

Third, Bolden said that NASA had to make space exploration more entrepreneurial. He cited the example of a friend who was using venture capital to pursue a rocket engine that could take people to Mars in "39 days instead of 8 to 11 months." "The government cannot fund everything we need to do," he said.

Does Bolden have a friend funding fusion? I wonder who is the friend? And which kind of fusion? (Or is he simply talking about the VASIMR engine?)

Some alert reader decided to transcribe the portion of the comfirmation hearing where Bolden made this comment. It turns out his friend is former astronaut Franklin Chang-Diaz, and the system is definitely VASIMR.
http://www.spacepolitics.com/2009/07/09 ... -audition/

I believe flight test of the engine at the ISS is planned in the next couple of years.

But to do Earth-to-Mars in 39 days, it will need a nuclear electric powerplant. Somewhere I recall this assumption is already made by Chang-Diaz and his group. Until they are given an alternative, they probably will push for the resurrection of Prometheus (fission for space applications).