Aren't SpaceX launch explosions big enough already?
Nuclear Conversion for Starship
11–20 of 155 posts
Re: Nuclear Conversion for Starship
#12Since this is presumably for interplanetary, and not heavy lift, I'm not sure why you'd use this over just having thin-film solar + pulsed plasma thruster (which can do anything from 1km/s to 3000km/s exhaust velocity).
Because nuclear thermal is high thrust, and sometimes you need high thrust.
Re: Nuclear Conversion for Starship
#13Might be a stupid question: would this result in radioactivity just flying through space as we try to propel spacecraft with it?
There's already plenty of it in space.
Re: Nuclear Conversion for Starship
#14Might be a stupid question: would this result in radioactivity just flying through space as we try to propel spacecraft with it?
It's not a stupid question. Space is already highly radioactive, with lots of protons and bigger nuclei from outside the solar system flying around in all directions, along with a ton of proton radiation from the Sun.
Re: Nuclear Conversion for Starship
#15I think we'll see nuclear propulsion for Starship variants that receive fuel rods in orbit and are not designed for reentry. Interplanetary logistics between Earth/Moon/Mars orbits.
Name me a country willing to give Elon Musk control of fissile material, however indirect.
Re: Nuclear Conversion for Starship
#16First I am reading about nuclear engines applied to Starship. I wonder if it would be more practical to launch the reactor, fuel, and propellant into orbit using conventional rockets. Later a mission could pick up this Nuclear rocket engine and use it as a sort of booster while not inside a strong gravitational field. Ofc that doesn’t sound like Starship at all.
Nuclear rockets are useless for launching things into orbit. They don't have the thrust-to-weight ratio to get off the ground. Nuclear rockets are useful because they have high specific impulse which means using less fuel for thrust.
One of the core teachings of Kerbal Space Program.
Re: Nuclear Conversion for Starship
#17Might be a stupid question: would this result in radioactivity just flying through space as we try to propel spacecraft with it?
Yes, but space is already full of radioactivity. An incredibly large amount of it. The average range (outside of the upper Earth's atmosphere) would be equivalent to getting somewhere around 10 chest x-rays per day, every day.
Re: Nuclear Conversion for Starship
#18First I am reading about nuclear engines applied to Starship. I wonder if it would be more practical to launch the reactor, fuel, and propellant into orbit using conventional rockets. Later a mission could pick up this Nuclear rocket engine and use it as a sort of booster while not inside a strong gravitational field. Ofc that doesn’t sound like Starship at all.
Did you read to the end? That's the idea he ends up with: only use nuclear propulsion for space-to-space travel where you don't care as much about shielding.
Re: Nuclear Conversion for Starship
#19AFAIK, the only nuclear rocket that makes sense is landing a reactor on an icy comet and using it to shoot super heated steam wherever you want thrust. #seveneves
Just don't let it leak.
RIP New Caird
Re: Nuclear Conversion for Starship
#20Aren't SpaceX launch explosions big enough already?
I don't know why you're downvoted. I think it's a legitimate question. When I was in high school I asked "Why don't we just shoot our nuclear waste into the sun?".
As an adult, Kerbal Space Program has taught me that it's incredibly difficult to lose the orbital velocity and get things into the Sun!
But the answer my teachers told me was "Well, even if rockets have a 99.5% success rate and a 0.5% failure rate, and only 1 out of every 200 rockets explodes during launch... then eventually a rocket carrying nuclear waste is going to explode and spread it everywhere"
As others have pointed out: Nuclear rockets don't have the thrust ratio necessary for take off, so presumably they'd be assembled and used in space. My question is: What level of risk does launching nuclear rocket parts/fuel into space pose?