The Fuel of the Future?

CARSTEN COSTARD

Mikhail Eremets (left) and Ivan Troyan stand by the 

apparatus they used to create what they believe to be 

metallic hydrogen

Is metallic hydrogen the key to future space travel? Many believe this is so.  The fuel is very lightweight, powerful, and is theorized to be found on Jupiter and Saturn.  Water is the fuel's only after use by-product and the fuel creates up to five times the efficiency of liquid H₂/O₂, the fuel that the Space Shuttle previously used.  The only draw back to this source of power is that it has not yet been officially created.  In 2011 the men shown above, believe they created the metallic form of hydrogen by pressing the gas form between two diamond tips until the pressure reached 270 billion pascals (270 G Pa), or about 2 million times Earth's atmospheric pressure at sea level.  This amount of force caused the gas to turn into a metal for a brief moment, but this is still highly questioned.  If this form of hydrogen can be created on Earth it would be a huge advance for deep space travel because it would allow for deep space refueling at the giant gas planets.