Want to go to Mars, but don’t fancy spending half a year in transit?

Well Nasa scientist Philip Lubin has figured out a way spaceships can travel to the red planet in just a few days, using laser technology.

At the moment, it takes humans around five months to fly up there from Earth – so it’s a pretty long-term commitment.

But in a video for Nasa 360, Lubin has set out one possible way of speeding up the whole journey.

Massive laser-powered jet could get to Mars in just three days
Lasers would be used to propel the ship (Picture: UCSB Experimental Cosmology Group)

Simply put, his method involves a massive laser designed to push spacecraft to superspeeds.

The system, called ‘photonic propulsion’, uses particles of light to propel objects through space.

Whoooosh (Picture: NASA360)
Whoooosh (Picture: NASA360)

Light particles have no mass, but they do have momentum and energy – and when it’s reflected off an object, this energy is transferred into a push.

With a big enough reflective sail, Lubin says, it could be possible to ‘generate enough momentum to accelerate a spacecraft’ using lasers on Earth that would pulse light.

Let's all go to Mars (Picture: Getty Images)
Let’s all go to Mars (Picture: Getty Images)

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Using this method, he adds, a 100kg spaceship could get to Mars in three days.

With humans on board it would take a bit longer – a month – but that’s still much better than the current travel time.

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