20:22 27 January 2011
From antimatter rockets to flying robots, NASA's wish list of technologies for space exploration stretches the imagination. The ideas appear in the agency's proposals for technologies from propulsion to robotics it might develop in the decades ahead.
The US National Research Council has been asked to evaluate the plans and is discussing them in a series of meetings this week in Washington DC.
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The fuel that powers rockets also weighs them down. That's where antimatter
When put in contact with matter, the two annihilate to release fantastic amounts of energy – far more than could be obtained by burning the same mass of chemical fuel.
But only tiny quantities of antimatter are made and trapped each year in particle collision experiments. To make antimatter rockets practical, a much bigger source
of antimatter would be needed.
(Image: Marshall Space Flight Center/NASA)