Everyone has seen a fluorescent tube light, the kind that are used in your kitchen or office and are more energy-efficient than the standard filament light bulbs.
The light itself uses a number of electrical processes that are similar to those used to generate thrust from a plasma engine in space, yet few of us would make the connection between the two. A way to look at it is this: the process that lights a lot of public and private spaces is almost identical to the process that can propel a spacecraft towards another planet or in the case of the NASA probe, Deep Space 1, can propel a craft to speeds never achieved previously in space travel. Plasma engines are viewed as next-generation technologies, with large-scale thrusters currently being developed for possible use on interplanetary missions; however ion thrusters, a class of plasma engines, are currently being used on missions to provide station-keeping duties or as the primary propulsion for spacecraft.
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