An international team of researchers have come up with a fusion-based spacecraft thruster that uses a hydrogen isotope called deuterium as a fuel source, as Popular Mechanics reports.
Their “direct fusion drive,” (DFD) — as detailed in a yet-to-be-peer-reviewed preprint — is theoretically able to speed up a spacecraft to a blistering 44 kilometers per second, covering the distance from here to Neptune and beyond in less than a decade.
While electric propulsion systems powered by the rays of the Sun have allowed us to explore the inner reaches of our solar system, venturing beyond Jupiter would require gigantic solar arrays, the team argues in its paper.
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