---
title: "Electric Solar Wind Sail could make bidirectional human Mars flights economically feasible"
description: "The E-sail is a novel propellantless technology that was invented in Finland in 2006 and utilizes long, charged tethers to convert natural solar wind momentum flux into spacecraft thrust."
date: "2015-04-28"
modified: "2015-08-13"
authors:
  - name: "Jason Hudson"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/jasonh"
url: "https://futurism.com/electric-solar-wind-sail-could-make-bidirectional-human-mars-flights-economically-feasible"
categories:
  - "Astronomy"
  - "Energy"
  - "Mars"
  - "Renewable Energy"
  - "Science & Energy"
  - "Space"
  - "Wind"
tags:
  - "space"
---

# Electric Solar Wind Sail could make bidirectional human Mars flights economically feasible

![Default Futurism featured image](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Futurism-Filler-Image.jpg>)

- According to Janhunen et al. (2015) the E-sail could make asteroid mining feasible by providing essentially free logistics in the solar system outside of Earth's magnetosphere. After finding a suitable water bearing asteroid, a mining unit is could be sent by the E-sail to extract the water from asteroid soil.
- This can be done by heating the material and letting the evolving water vapour condense in a cool container. When full, it is separated from the mining unit and transported with an E-sail in to the orbit of Mars or Earth where it is split into hydrogen and oxygen and liquefied. The liquid hydrogen/oxygen (LH2/LOX) fuel can be used to fill the tanks of manned vehicles travelling between Earth and Mars.
- The Electric solar wind sail facilitated Manned Mars Initiative, EMMI, could provide a fundamentally new, economically sustainable way to approach manned Mars flights.