Has anybody else seen the top article at Spacedaily (www.spacedaily.com) today?

NASA is shortly expected to announce a new nuclear rocket development program as it's top priority soon. They will, during the next couple of weeks, be requesting resources and funding from congress to design this system. Estimated to have a thrust to weight ratio outperforming current technology by at least 300%, the new rocket could revolutionize space travel.

:cool:

Here's the article link since this thread might be up for a day or two and today's frontpage stories are tomorrow's fish and chips wrapping.

Article. (http://www.spacedaily.com/news/oped-03c.html)

This is fantastic news for space nuts. We might really be going to Mars now. I had my reservations about Bush at first but now I'm learning to like his trend bucking foot in mouth demeanor. It's a nice change having a non-politically correct President.

Go Bush.

Great news for NASA.

But at what price? What's Bush's real agenda? Pro-space? I doubt it.

During the 60's there was research into nuclear powered cruise missiles, but it was abandoned due to I think the development of ICBMs and because it was an ecological nightmare. I wonder...

It was abandoned because of the difficulty in maintaining such a missile for years on end. For immediate use it might have been practical but a nuclear powered missile couldn't be switched off without a meltdown back then. Imagine keeping one of those babies fueled up and running on the pad for decades. Expensive indeed. It would have had twice the range of regular missiles which is an incredible advantage. Even better was the nuclear ramjet program. An airbreathing rocket powered by nuclear reactor. Range would have been virtually unlimited. Uses more fuel launching up to scramjet velocity and landing than it would circling the Earth a few times.

So what did you think of my article at Spacedaily? Too long? Altruistic? Lacking vision? I can take it. Be honest. It sucked right.

I liked the article. My question now is, okay we have a way to get to Mars faster, but are we ready to go yet? :) And stay?

And why not use this for Earth to Moon as well...do we even have an existing engine for manned extra orbit travel since junking the Apollos? I hope this is a good sign that NASA is serious about ramping up something in the near future.

Now if we can just get that space elevator up and working soon... :)

I keep getting asked what it is. Being the original founder of NuclearSpace.com everybody thinks I have an inside scoop but even my friends at INSPI and JPL are keeping tightlipped. Hopefully we will have some interviews lined up with scientists and engineers involved with Prometheus quite soon but until then we can only guess. It's most likely a rocket which will be lifted to space on chemical boosters. Intact or piecemeal for interplanetary flights. First they have to complete research and development of a test vehicle. It won't be big. The next ten years might see ambitious new probes exploring the outer planets in time frames previously unheard of. After the technology is proven it can be scaled up for manned missions.
There's a slim possibility it could be a single stage rocket. I'm only voicing this opinion because I've been watching nuclear space reports since the federal budget and seen quite a few references to something new being developed. A science magazine did an article on Nasa's intention to build nuclear boosters for launching payloads. The rumour is that Prometheus might be an air breathing rocket with acceptably low radioactive exhaust to make it a feasible proposition to the public. But the Government is keeping it quiet for as long as possible to give ecowacky protestors less time to disrupt the application to congress. Like I said, it's rather unlikely but a possibility. If it is a launch system then it truly would revolutionise space travel. We could eventually be looking at airline rates to Mars.

my guess would also be chemical, with nuclear space drive. While the opposition seems dormant now, if word got out that it was single stage, with "acceptable" radioactive exhaust, well...

Something to keep an eye on...

Whatever it is, there's a very real possibility it will end up either shelved or in a trashcan. Over at NuclearSpace, Space.com, the Mars Society, Red Colony and other boards we are discussing a petition. I have to contact the Planetary Society as I know they see Nuclear Space technology in a favourable light too. I'm trying to organise it now and will post a link here if we can get it together.

You know modern projection have shone that it would cost about 50 billion to go to mars and back. I yell this out every time some spending project I see excides this number… usually such money is spent by the military on stupid and horrible things! Being a pessimist I don’t see this thing ever getting off the ground. It would be a great step for humanity if it did but that is not what people are about... we are about killing and @#$%ing over each other not improving are selves and are future!

Unfortunately you're correct. If for some reason we needed to get to Mars for a military reason, we'd be on our way now, full troops and everything. But for scientific purposes, it'll wait...

Dam martians lets attack them! come on now people fork over the money so we can put a bullet between ther beedy little eyes for uncle sam! :D

Where do I join up? Careful Dude. You are sounding suspiciously "Alienist". The politicically correct fashion trendies and pop culture druids will prepare a cauldron to well and truly cook your fetus.
You know, if a Black man walks around wearing a shirt saying Black is Beautiful he gets applauded. If I was to wear a shirt saying White is Wonderful I'd be spat on. Where's the justice?

the justies was provided by 200 years of slavery... now it is their turn, only problem is they don't get it because white people say that "reverse discrimination" but this is a subject for a diffrent post.

Indeed.
Reminds me of a guy calling himself Yales who kept attacking NuclearSpace.com and making up the most absurd claims. Conversation can get a bit stifled at times so to liven things up a little we conduct bizarre experiments on occasion. We made this anti-nuclear luddite a moderator and it was quite funny. He would come out with countless silly comments like "No nation would dare to withdraw from the nuclear proliferation treaty, never, not in a million years". I ofcourse would politely rubbish these opinions that had been quoted as fact. I have yet to ask him about N.Korea. He vanished one day and never came back. I think his world view was simply shattered one too many times for his fragile ego to cope with. He would do this huge backpedalling performance most times. A tap dance in which he would deny that what he said was exactly what he mean't. Quite the clown. Definately the most educated ecowacky we ever had at our board and a great conversationalist but I got a little tired of him when he started stalking me around the net. That was just plain creepy. He would email people I spoke to and tell them all sorts of lies. Often accusing me of what he was actually doing. One thing I could never stand is liars. Exagerration and outright lies seemed to be his stock and trade. Caught him out enough times doing it and always the tap dance and denial. One day I came here to Sciforums and did a rather good impersonation off him which was supposed to be funny. I'm not above vengeance. He ofcourse didn't find it funny, which made it all the funnier. I didn't make him look bad as such, just foolish. By means of posting the kind of nonsense he liked to write at NuclearSpace messageboards. It was revenge but harmless revenge and I challenge anyone to demonstrate how it harmed Yales in any way. I had done nothing morally wrong and selecting the user name Yales is hardly a felony. TheRealYales does not own that name. I don't want to pretend this didn't happen as I feel no remorse over it and am not really bothered if I get banned by Porfiry. I understand Yales has told you I am a nutcase and many of you have accepted this without argument but remember it was him who hurled abuse and made unsubstantiated untruthful claims. Prior to that I had not said anything inflammatory or untruthful and I still haven't. The username Yales belongs to me at sciforums and if Yale Simkin had wanted it he would have taken it earlier.

Enlightening!

I think I will start a post about human stubbornness and why it exist and how to deal with it!

It will be in the Human Sciences, thx Cthulhu

I can respect a certain degree of stubborness in people but not when they surround themselves with their own little universe. Some people completely ignore cracks in their world view. I'm frequently wrong about things and will just laugh it off. If I never made mistakes I wouldn't be human and if I knew everything there was to know then what would be my motivation for living. A small number of people do see an attack on their opinion as being not unlike barbarians scaling the walls of their infallible perception.
I like Yales. He's fun to talk to most of the time. Very well educated and smart too. His only problem as I see it is that he suffers from what I like to call "Know-all" syndrome. Most of the time he is in fact right when he says something. However, when he's wrong, he can't accept it. Like one time he preached to us over at NS that Breeder Reactors would never make a come back. Not ever. No way. You had to be a complete idiot to even entertain the possibility as far as he was concerned. I disagreed with this assertion and could literally see his condescension dripping out of the monitor onto my keyboard. A few months later India announced it was going to build Breeder Reactors. He still kept trying to persuade us that logically he was correct about this and they hadn't the resources to build such plants. He takes it all too personally and his obsession with besmirching my good name knows no bounds. I won't go into some of his rather distasteful past actions right now. I'd rather let bygones be bygones. Suffice to say I was seeking legal advice. He's been very quiet of late so I think I can forgive and forget all that. I've met worse people on the net anyway.

Just wanted to add this to give some sense to the difference between current outer system exploration and how it might be with nuclear driven probes.

http://nuclearspace.com/a_nasa_content.htm

Specifically:

So, ok...taken that the "Speed limit" is roughly 3X10^8m/s. Suppose we had sent a 2-3 ton probe with 1970's analyzers, specialized optics powered by nuclear propulsion and 250 tons of fuel along a favorable trajectory at a constant speed of roughly 0.1c. With 50Kw/kg power to allow for trip time, "Proximity of presence" and data relay. In the past 20-30 years that present interstellar probes have drifted into the Bow shock's 22km/s speed of galactic winds, a Nuclear Thermal Rocket direct/electric bimodal propulsion/power space probe would be fast approaching Proxima/Alpha Centauri. Dispelling any doubt that some extrasolar planetary system exists around the double star next door to our Sun.

While the Voyager probes will cover only 2 light years in the next 20,000 years, we could have launched a nuclear version and be expecting broadcasts in the next few years from it of our neighbor stars.

Imagine what's possible within the system itself. Every planet a few dedicated probes, powered for years on end and able to move where needed. Manned missions at reasonable time periods. Earth to Moon in what, hours maybe?

I know I'm preaching to the converted mostly. I just fail to see again and again why we seem to purposefully drag our feet.

There have been several notable nuclear powered interstellar probe projects. Daedalus is probably the most famous. An offshoot of Orion technology. Project Longshot was developed by the U.S. Navy and NASA in 1988 as a design for an unmanned probe to Alpha Centauri. Nuclear Powered Ramjets. Ram Augmented Interstellar Rockets. Today we could do much better.

http://scientium.com/Commentary/Bowden_Essays/startrip/starship/tau.gif

The TAU was a Jet Propulsion Laboratory design. Planned as an interstellar percursor mission, it can travel at approximately 20 A.U. per year (3 trillion meters per year, or about 95 kilometers per second).
The TAU uses a nuclear reactor to generate about 150 kilowatts of electricity. This is used to expel a stream of charged ions taken from an inert reaction mass. Usually this mass is xenon. Exhaust velocities are about 70 kilometers per second. The boost phase is approximately ten years long.

I fail to see the use of sending a probe to Alpha Centauri, any planets we find are likely to be completely uninhabitable. Why don't we put that giant planet finder up in orbit around jupiter, find a close star system with a nice, M-Class world (erm..trekkie..eheh) to land on? It would make things so much easier for the colonists...

It will be a long LONG time before we get to another star! Ion engines are not expected to be effiecent after reaching a speed of 1% the speed of light. that means to ge to Alpha Centari it would take ~460 years! Fusion is expected to max out at 15% at that speed you would get there in ~30 years

How's that stubborness post coming along wellcookedfetus? It must be really good because you haven't put it up yet and it's been a couple of days. If you are having any problems then this battle of wills might give you some inspiration. Me and yalesey have been locking horns for years. He wins atleast half of our arguments. Partly because he's very well educated and partly because he lives on the internet. The guy will spend hours digging up obscure references and he can certainly keep you on your toes.

Stubborness contest. (http://pub97.ezboard.com/fnuclearspacefrm1.showMessage?topicID=298.topic)

It was rather sad to watch his mental decline. Obsession will do that to you if you let it. I'm probably as stubborn as he is but I have to work for a living aswell.

OH sorry forgot about that Must have been :m: at the time :D I need a good speach on that thing though.

I had an email from that Yale troll yesterday.

Yale L. Simkin
8 Treehouse Crt
Bolingbrook
Chicago

Please visit our new board http://www.everything-space.com and you will see that it is far better than sciforums. A much better class of people all round. Porfiry banned me from that site for nothing more than trying to warn him about the sicko Wayne who is my sworn enemy. I will never stop warning boards he shows up at. Never. Ever. Ever. Ever. Ever. Ever. Ever. Ever. Ever. Ad nauseum. He is never going to stop me telling people the truth about him. Nobody can ban me. I am a network engineer and can use any Id I like. I will forever speak my mind and nobody will stop me posting at any forum about it. You are better off away from sciforums as I cannot guarantee Porfiry isn't wayne. We have news and free email too. Looking forward to seeing you soon.

Yale S.
ysim44@cbot.com


What a nut! :eek: