The US government is taking a step toward space-based nuclear propulsion
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Re: The US government is taking a step toward space-based nuclear propulsion
#2Finally! This is one of the few fission uses I'm genuinely excited about. Nuclear-thermal just makes so much sense for in-space propulsion of large vessels compared to chemical rockets.
Re: The US government is taking a step toward space-based nuclear propulsion
#3The more adoption of nuclear technologies with practical application, the better.
Re: The US government is taking a step toward space-based nuclear propulsion
#4[deleted]
Re: The US government is taking a step toward space-based nuclear propulsion
#5So they are strapping a nuclear power plant to a huge vessel of explosive liquids..
Will the first launch be on PPV?
Re: The US government is taking a step toward space-based nuclear propulsion
#6So they are strapping a nuclear power plant to a huge vessel of explosive liquids.. Will the first launch be on PPV?
RTGs have been going to space since the 60s [1].
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_...
Re: The US government is taking a step toward space-based nuclear propulsion
#7Finally! This is one of the few fission uses I'm genuinely excited about. Nuclear-thermal just makes so much sense for in-space propulsion of large vessels compared to chemical rockets.
I think the obvious concern would be failure scenarios. There will always be failures in space technology. As space expands exponentially (as it is likely to do so in the future), failures will become relatively regular. So the obvious question would be what would happen if a nuclear rocket, with reaction in process, crashed to Earth. Or even if it broke up in the atmosphere.
Re: The US government is taking a step toward space-based nuclear propulsion
#8The more adoption of nuclear technologies with practical application, the better.
That’s an odd thing to say. Almost as if you’re in favour of nuclear for nuclear’s sake? Plenty of people have reasonable reservations about use of nuclear, not least the social /political ones of where to store waste that are still mostly unsolved. Blasting fission cores into space on rockets with fairly high failure rates in absolute terms seems like a fairly fine balance to strike?
Re: The US government is taking a step toward space-based nuclear propulsion
#9So they are strapping a nuclear power plant to a huge vessel of explosive liquids.. Will the first launch be on PPV?
RTGs have been going to space since the 60s [1]. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_...
RTGs do not use fission and do not create fission products. Nuclear fuels are harmless in comparison to Strontium-90 and Cesium-137.
Re: The US government is taking a step toward space-based nuclear propulsion
#10If we can build them in space I would be interested