Wow. That's starting to be respectable levels of thrust. (Back of the envelope says a 100-second burn could change the velocity of the international space station by a couple meters per second, assuming the structure held together.) A ship with a power source could go almost anywhere if they were patient.

~5 years of life doesn't sound much for a space engine to take anything too far and come back

@alexD is that 50,000 hours total lifespan, or 50,000 hours of time actually firing? Conventional rockets have thrust-producing design lives measured in minutes to perhaps double-digit hours. Even jet engines need maintenance every thousand hours or less, and rebuilding around 20-30,000 hours...

to paul314; Where did you see the thrust numbers? I see 11,000 lbs of propellent and 12,500 watts used but no actual thrust figures I can see.

Awesome!

Post some more Pictures!

I know it's just back of the envelope, but I'm going by energy considerations. The If the energy they're talking about actually goes to outgoing material, then momentum transfer blah blah. Definitely order of magnitude rather than exact. But that you can even imagine moving large objects with such thrusters is a big deal.

Hypersolar will be rolling out a full size pilot plant in early 2020 that produces hydrogen with solar panels and water. Fuel cells are about to become very popular. I would think that this would include space travel.

The ship will reach exhaust velocity after using 70% of it's mass as fuel. This is the advantage of ion drive.

What are the thrust numbers? Is there a calculation for kW output to actual thrust output in a weight value?