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To: RightWhale
Asteroid mining is the way to go as far as I know.

The nuclear interplanetary shuttle has no mission, nor will ever have a mission worth the trouble.

Agree with the mining of asteroids. Disagree that such a shuttle would be worthless. First off its design could be the framework for a space truck for getting mining spoils back to Earth, or Moon, or where ever they would be processed. Two, there are no doubt other bodies to be explored and resources to be retrieved from other areas of the solar system. Why not have a nuclear powered craft that doesn't require the massive amounts of conventional fuel now used?

74 posted on 04/18/2002 12:14:57 PM PDT by AFreeBird
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To: AFreeBird
I was thinking of how a nuke shuttle might be used in actuality besides exploration of the deep solar system. The quantity of material that would be moved from the Mars-Jupiter Asteroid Belt in a commercial enterprise would be significant tonnage but nuke shuttles wouldn't pay their own way. Another propulsion technique, one with a much higher ISP, is required. Plasma or ion propulsion is what I looked at when I wrote my analysis almost a 1/4 century ago.

If there were a manned base on or orbiting Mars, a nuke shuttle might be convenient to reduce transit time for the crews, but not necessary.

Aside from those two uses, I don't see commercial viability for the nuke shuttle.

78 posted on 04/18/2002 12:23:09 PM PDT by RightWhale
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