To Mars and Beyond, Fast!

1 The Nautilus Paradigm.- 2 A Fast Track to Deep Space.- 3 Early VASIMR Development.- 4 Probing the Physics.- 5 The Breakthroughs.- 6 A New Company is Born.- 7 The VX-200 and the Path to Commercialization.- 8 A Bridge to the Future.- 9 Mission Threats and Potential Solutions.- 10 The VASIMR Nuclear-Electric Mission Architecture.- Index.

While attending the University of Connecticut, Dr. Chang-Díaz worked as a research assistant in the Physics Department and participated in the design and construction of high-energy atomic collision experiments. Following graduation in 1973, he entered graduate school at MIT, becoming heavily involved in the United States' controlled fusion program and doing intensive research in the design and operation of fusion reactors. He obtained his Doctorate in the field of Applied Plasma Physics and fusion technology and, in that same year, joined the technical staff of the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory. His work at Draper was geared strongly toward the design and integration of control systems for fusion reactor concepts and experimental devices in both inertial and magnetic confinement fusion. In 1979, he developed a novel concept to guide and target fuel pellets in an inertial fusion reactor chamber. Later on, he was engaged in the design of a new concept in rocket propulsion, based on magnetically confined high temperature plasmas. His 1979 concept of a plasma rocket became the VASIMR® plasma engine, embodied in 3 NASA patents to his name. As a visiting scientist with the MIT Plasma Fusion Center, from October 1983 to December 1993, he led the plasma propulsion program there to develop this technology for future human missions to Mars. In 1994, he founded and directed the Advanced Space Propulsion Laboratory (ASPL) at the Johnson Space Center where he managed a multi-center research team to develop this propulsion technology.

On July 8, 2005, after 25 years of government service, Dr. Chang-Díaz retired from NASA to continue his work on the VASIMR® through the private sector. Initiating a career as a space entrepreneur, he is founder and current Chairman and CEO of Ad Astra Rocket Company, www.adastrarocket.com, a US private firm based in Houston Texas, with research operations in Houston and Costa Rica. After eight years of operation, Ad Astra has matured the

"The book introduces readers to the realm of plasma physics and chronicles the innovations and discoveries that made VASIMR® possible ... . Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division graduate students through faculty and professionals." (S. P. Maran, Choice, Vol. 55 (10), June, 2018)