NASA eyes nuclear-powered rocket

LA Times ^ | 1/17/03 | PETER PAE

[Brett66]

Hoping to pave the way for the human exploration of Mars within the next decade, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration is expected to announce that developing a nuclear-powered rocket is its top research priority.

The space agency is expected to request "significant resources and funding" to design a nuclear-powered propulsion system to triple the speed of current space travel, theoretically making it possible for humans to reach Mars in a two-month voyage.

Excerpt; rest of article here:

Agency expected to seek funding to develop way to travel 3 times

[mikegi]

The "Trinity and Beyond" DVD's actually show a couple of videos of this test, another detonation basically had a glowing sphere with streamers coming out of the center, it was very cool.

I have that DVD. I'll take a look at it later but I don't remember any outer space tests, only ones still in the atmosphere (however high up). Without the air, imho, there wouldn't be enough matter to create visible streamers, etc.

[Brett66]

Dr.Chag Diaz- physicist/astronaut has been developing this at NASA for some years, but it looks like maybe it's time has come. With this funding boost it looks like we could see some in -orbit testing in a relatively short time.

Pic of Diaz' VASIMR:

[Frank_Discussion]

Explosion on takeoff would amount to a "dirty bomb."...

Only if you breached the protective casings. I don't think that's ever happened. They fire the things through solid cinderblock walls to test them - they are tough little hombres. Rockets have exploded underneath them, and they've been cleaned up and inserted into new spacecraft for use.

[Frank_Discussion]

Yep, that's the place! Dr. Chang-Diaz has a flight experiment proposed for a working model of the design for the space station. It would be used for orbit station-keeping.

[Brett66]

I believe they show those tests right after the "Where the boys are" song gets interrupted on the radio by an EMP blast. IIRC those tests were about 100 miles up and I don't know what those streamers were, they didn't provide an explanation on the video. They weren't moving or anything, they just stayed there, motionless.

[Frank_Discussion]

Last post for today, but I'll say this: You shouldn't be suspicious at all. The link between NASA and the military has been very publicly strengthened with the Bush administration. You can bet military planners have plans of their own. G'night all!

[gnarledmaw]

"At least they don't have to come back and find out their families died thousands of years ago."

[Eala]

What better way for them to contribute to the environment than to give back their own useless atoms to the universe!

Hey, those atoms aren't useless!

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[Brett66]

The military capabilities of a spacecraft based on this propulsion would be impressive. This would be a true spaceship, one that could move to almost any orbit in the Earth-moon system at will and would be totally reusable, possibly years of operation in cis-lunar space. This would represent an unprecedented capability, a capability far beyond what we have in the shuttle. It could be called the first spacecruiser.

[LibWhacker]

Operation Starfish, 1.4MT, altitude 400km, July 9, 1962

Quote from here:

When a nuclear weapon detonates at a high altitude, many of the effects are attenuated. Most of the x-ray energy is absorbed in the air, which decreases the fireball temperature. Absorption of thermal x-ray energy also decreases the energy available for a shock wave. This all results in the development of a toroidal or donut-shaped cloud instead of the usual mushroom shape of ground or near ground explosions.

This also shows the auroral effect of high-altitude explosions where the extreme brightness of the fireball is visible at great distances. Within a second or two after the burst, a brilliant aurora appears from the bottom of the fireball. The formation of the aurora is attributed to the motion, along the lines of the earth’s magnetic field, of beta particles emitted by the radioactive fission fragments. About a minute after the detonation, the aurora can be observed from as far away as 2000 miles. These auroras can be seen for approximately 20 minutes.

You can download the trailer for Nukes in Space and get a quick glimpse of one of these toroidal clouds here. Not sure, but it kind of looks like a computer generated scene to me.

[Interesting Times]

Impressive.

How often do you have to change the dilithium crystals?

[mikegi]

I captured a still from the DVD. A high altitude explosion from a Thor missile (approx. 1.5 megaton warhead at 400km altitude):

[Brett66]

Yeah, that was the one I was talking about. I don't know if "streamers" was the correct description, maybe "wisps".
Pretty cool, thanks for posting that.

[LibWhacker]

I'm all for this, but would really like to see them bring Orion back in a big way. "We've" GOT to do it sooner or later and quit putzing around with this horse-and-buggy chemical rocket stuff if we want to get anywhere.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Military capabilities could be very important!

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