Rejoice! NASA is developing Nuclear Power!

Discussion in 'General Science & Technology' started by tetra, Feb 6, 2002.

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  1. Chagur .Seeker. Registered Senior Member

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    Mr. G ...

    How big a peace?

    Take care

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  3. tetra Hello Registered Senior Member

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    I sure wish the fundamental enviormentalists would realize that we are either risking a nuclear accident, or risking extinction..
     
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  5. Bagman Registered Senior Member

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    Chagur,

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    Maybe once in space a heat to electricity exchange powering an ion engine may be possible, but no way are you going to get a nuclear propelled 'rocket' off the ground using nuclear energy.
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    The important thing is that no one is talking about getting a rocket off the ground with nuclear energy, except in this message thread. They're going to be used in space. But I wouldn't go so far as to say that there was no way to get one off the ground. Probably there is. One of the engines that's being talked about has about the same thrust as a 747, and it's not clear to me that this couldn't be increased by a lot. But there would be no reason to do so, because, even if human safety were not a consideration, you wouldn't want a nuclear reactor whose real purpose and value was for the long haul - e.g., all the way to Mars and back - running at full tilt during launch and ascent, because you'd risk destroying or damaging it. (In fact, it won't be running at all during launch and ascent.)

    There's no reason to quote the word "rocket," because these things really will be rockets - there's no other way to propel something in space. They won't use heat to electricity conversion; they'll directly heat a propellant. By the way, a nuclear rocket was ground-tested back in the '50s or '60s.
     
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  7. Bagman Registered Senior Member

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    Xelios,

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    The United States spends too much money on military, and not enough on space exploration. Thier military budget exceeds $1 trillion a year.
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    Where did you hear or read this amount? It's completely absurd. The correct information is at your fingertips if you care enough to make accurate statements.
     
  8. Bagman Registered Senior Member

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    Xelios,

    It turns out that nuclear rockets would work even better than I claimed in my earlier message; there would be no great obstacle to launching one from the ground, except the environmental hazard. Some of the 1950s planners had every intention of launching from ground. Others didn't. It makes sense, since a nuclear rocket could be far more powerful than a chemical rocket. A nuclear rocket that simply expels superheated hydrogen gets about twice the thrust of a rocket that burns hydrogen, and apparently that's only an engineering limit, not a theoretical limit. In fact, it may be no more than a limit that's specific to a certain design or certain circumstances. I don't know.

    The longest test firing of a nuclear rocket engine ran for 11 minutes. The tests were generally very successful; people were very pleased with them.

    What's even wilder, they had plans for a nuclear rocket that would detonate small A-bombs a few hundred feet behind the vehicle. Apparently this concept is quite feasible, too.

    The planners in those days were talking about a Mars round trip of 4 months, and about very large and heavy vehicles that you couldn't possibly lift or propel with a chemical rocket. A nuclear rocket that NASA is now planning would make Mars one-way in about 4 months.

    Plans for nuclear rockets were canceled during the late Eisenhower or early Kennedy administration, but I think they took a while to wind down, since there were moves to rescue some of them. They were canceled because it was felt that the political obstacles to flying them would be too great, or at least too great to make for an early 1st moon landing. Apparently this is the only case in history of canceling the development of a new technology for political reasons.

    NASA is now re-instating nukes on a space-only basis; no ground launch. Nukes are the only reasonable way of moving humans around the solar system, short of fusion, which we don't yet have, of course.

    1950s plans for nuclear airplanes are interesting, too.
     
  9. Xelios We're setting you adrift idiot Registered Senior Member

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    Sorry, aparently that number was for the next 5 years. Don't know how I could have missed that =/

    But $300 billion is still a lot of money to be spending on military.
     
  10. Bagman Registered Senior Member

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    Xelios,

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    Sorry, aparently that number was for the next 5 years. Don't know how I could have missed that =/
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    I think your Canadian figure may be way too high, too. Canada spent $10 billion on defense in some recent year, but since I didn't have the very latest information, I wasn't completely sure.

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    But $300 billion is still a lot of money to be spending on military.
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    Which of the following do you mean?

    a. Our military is too large/strong.

    b. We could get the same for less money.

    c. Allied countries should spend more on defense, enabling us to spend less.

    d. Something else.

    I would guess you meant (a), but how am I supposed to know?

    In constant dollars, we've been spending very roughly the same since the mid-1960s, but nowadays we're spending a lot less as a percentage of GDP, 3.5% very recently vs. 7% during some longish period or 8% in about 1966.

    Regardless of what you mean by "too much," you're going to have to mean it for at least a 35-year period and very likely longer than that. I'd figure on 50 years.
     
  11. Chagur .Seeker. Registered Senior Member

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    Bagman ...

    Re. "A nuclear rocket that simply expels superheated hydrogen ... "

    Do you realize how close to criticality it would have to operate to reach
    those temperatures? Considering the shielding that would be required
    to keep from frying the crew during a long trip, like the four months you
    mentioned, forget it!

    The experiments you referred to, and I alluded to early in the thread, were
    not intended for a manned flight vehicle! (there, I even avoided using 'rocket')

    Take care

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    Last edited: Mar 6, 2002
  12. TruthSeeker Fancy Virtual Reality Monkey Valued Senior Member

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    Fuson Power is Better!

    I think we should wait for fuson power... we are getting closer to get it...

    Even though it appears that UFOs uses nuclear power...

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    Besides that... we will never go above the speed of light, if it's really impossible. We could use other dimensions... but you have to be really creative to deal with the idea...

    Where is the nearest star? I guess... 4 light years away, isn't it? Imagine travel 4 years to see if it has a planet...
    Even inside our own solar system is pretty hard to travel in the speed we can get nowdays...

    Colombo took months to cross the Atlantic Ocean. Today, we can do it in three hours. But it passed already more than 500 years! So it seems that we have to look in a veeeery long perspective unless a crazy guy develop a way to travel through another dimensions...

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    One already had the idea...

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    Love,
    Nelson
     
    Last edited: Mar 22, 2002
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