Okay, so what do we all think of this story?
It looks like the Bush administration is set to announce a huge program to build a nuclear powered rocket that can get a manned mission to Mars.
From the article:
And get this, from the Guardian:
Holy cow, but that’s ambitious if true. A manned mission to Mars in 2010? This would have to be funded like an Apollo project.
One thing I’ll say about Bush - he’s swings for the fences. His policies are big and bold.
On one hand: Yay! A US president is finally getting serious about the space program. This is fantastic news.
On the other hand: Why did it have to be a president I so strongly dislike? Damn you, Bush, for making me feel all conflicted!
Call me a luddite, but I’m a little uncomfortable with putting a nuclear reactor atop ye olde skyscraper full of explosives… I guess my big problem with it is that it’s ultimately a dead end. Can you really imagine a civilization with hundreds of nuclear spacecraft rocketing off each day? We can’t even keep planes from crashing.
How exactly does this thing work? Did I miss the explanation in the articles? I wasn’t familiar with a nuclear reactor powered rocket, although they’re a staple of 50’s SF. I have heard of a rocket powered by, IIRC, americium. (I can look up the article if anyone’s interested. As I remember, it was a big reaction vessel coated with americium, and the decay of the radioisotopes ionized the propellant or somesuch. It was specifically floated as a Mars drive.)
There’s an article in a recent Analog. Ah, here it is. The July/August 2002 issue, “Are We Afraid of a Little Fire?” by Dr. Steven D. Howe. I can summarize a bit of it for you, if you’d like. I don’t know if it’s available online. However, he does have a website, where it appears he has stuff on both Mars and nuclear rockets. Basically, he argues that nuclear propulsion is needed. I agree.
If he does that I’ll move to the US and vote for him.
Like the sound of this!
I also like the “no nukes in space” slogan - sure, getting it up might be a bit hairy, but what does he think the Sun runs on?
I’m guessing that a nuclear engine will be able to accelerate the rocket to a very high velocity. Does anyone know any plans by which the astronauts will be able to counter the weaking effects of prolonged weightlessness? (My suggestion: accelerate at 1g for half the trip, then decelerate at 1g for the second half).
But how will he fund it, given the last war, the impending war, and the tax rebates? Self funding? Will we see “Microsoft” plastered all over the side of the Saturn VII* and “this mission goes better with Coke” in the top-left of all the pictures?
*made that up.
In a nuclear thermal rocket, a nuclear reactor heats up a propellant which is expelled through a nozzle at high speed, providing thrust. Here is a 1992 paper that provides quite a bit of detail (warning: PDF).
I don’t think funding is actually that big of a deal. NASA’s entire budget is only something like 13 billion dollars a year. The stimulus packages that are being debated will cost between 60-100 billion per year. Bush could double NASA’s budget and it would hardly be noticed at the federal level.
My guess from what I’ve read is that the nuclear rocket plan, which was originally supposed to get 1 billion over five years, will be accelerated to maybe a billion or two a year. Tacking an extra billion onto the ‘stimulus’ package will be small potatos.
This is a great time for an audacious program like this. Western civilization is under attack, people are scared, and the future looks glum. This is part of what has rocked consumer confidence and help lengthen the economic downturn. A bold plan like this will lift spirits, and the technological innovation that will come out of it will ensure that the U.S. stays on top of the heap in the space race.
That’d be nice, because you’d get to Mars in a little over 2 days (using .5AU as the Earth/Mars distance on the back of my napkin), but it aint gonna happen with any rocket we can build for many many years.
Bush wants to colonize Mars ASAP before some rogue terrorists nuke the U.S. to oblivion.
Other than getting a rocket powerful enough and other factors, and are there any obstacles to getting someone on mars? Are there any radiation belts like the Van Allan (not sure if that’s what it’s called) belts around the moon?
The obstacles are enormous. According to the link I posted above, the flight time would be 5+ months each way, and the astronauts would stay at mars for 1.5 years before the return flight could be made (gotta wait for those planets to line up again). The amount of consumables (food/water/air) would be incredible.
All of this is solvable, but it makes the Apollo program look like a walk in the park.
This brings to mind that old saw about a hundred blindfolded monkeys hammering away on keyboards. Sooner or later one of them will come up with the complete works of Heinlein. 
It’s a fine idea, but let’s see if it actually gets funded before heralding W. as the Messiah of a new age.
The nuclear rocket gets them there in 2 months, and probably would allow them to leave shortly thereafter, I’d think.
But yes, the obstacles to getting to Mars are huge. Just landing on that planet and staying there will be very difficult. It’s freakin’ cold. Makes antarctica look like a warm summer day. Blowing sand gets into everything. The weather is unpredictable. And getting back off the planet requires a rocket launch far, far bigger than was required to leave the moon.
If they are serious about putting a man on mars in 7-8 years, this program will need big funding down the road. Bush can start off at a billion or two this year, but in the ‘out years’ funding would have to go up dramatically.
But it’s still small potatos. Apollo cost about .8% of GDP in its peak year. If they spent that much today, it would be 80 billion dollars a year.
But we don’t need to spend that kind of money. Interestingly, back in July the Russians floated a joint U.S-Russian plan to land a man on Mars by 2014, at an estimated cost of $20 billion. They said they’d pick up 30% of the cost.
That cost is probably way low, given the way projects like this tend to balloon out of control. But on the other hand, a nuclear rocket and the discovery of massive amounts of water on Mars would cut costs substantially.
So let’s guess on the parameters of this. My guess - Bush will announce an accelerated program to put a man on Mars by 2010 - which would almost exactly match the time given by Kennedy for Apollo. The total program will probably be listed as 20-40 billion, with the Russians contributing maybe 20% of the cost.
This would be a great thing. This will draw the Russian people closer to Americans and solidify the capitalist transition in Russia. The technology spinoffs will boost the Russian economy.
And can you imagine what we can do with a well engineered nuclear rocket program? The moon becomes a milk run, especially with the discovery of water there. A big Earth-Moon nuclear rocket permanently stationed in orbit would allow us to set up a low-cost permanent manned presence on the moon. Put a nuclear reactor on the moon, and youv’e got power for extracting water, digging habitats, making fuel for the nuclear rocket, etc.
A nuclear rocket would allow more ambitious planetary programs like a nuclear-powered ice borer for Europa.
I’ll believe it when I see the check made out to NASA. Given that W. has never particularly had any use for the space program except insofar as it has anything to do with his missile defense fantasies, I am extraordinarily skeptical that there’s any real conviction behind this.
If it’s real, I will gladly sing his praises.
Oy vey!!! Let the cheerleading begin. I thought conservatives were supposed to hate the idea of the government wasting money. And, there is no bigger waste of money than the manned space program.
If you looked at what NASA has accomplished with piddly amounts of money for unmanned programs and compare that to what they have accomplished with the large amounts of money for manned programs, the difference is likely to be just astounding. Talk about cost-benefit analysis!!
I mean, I am not knocking the Apollo program. I think, maybe it was an important thing to do in its time to show ourselves what could be done and to learn about what it takes to do manned space flights. And, maybe sometime in the future there will come a time when we may want to consider it again. But, I don’t see much of a case at the moment.
We should be learning from the boondoggle of the current International Space Station. But alas, …
Just to expound on my view a little, since it seems to be such a minority here, here is testimony of Robert Park of the American Physical Society concerning the international space station. Admittedly, it doesn’t all apply to a manned Mars mission but a lot of it does. I’ll quote in particular, this part:
Everyone knew the ISS was an expensive, scientifically pointless boondoggle, jshore. They did it anyway for reasons of international relations, primarily with the Russians. It is not, IMO, terribly relevant to a manned mission to Mars.
“about damn time we did something ambitious in the space program.” I’m all for it. Anyway, as a libertarian leaning conservative I view space exploration as a public good which distributes benefits throughout society. Anyone who does not like space is a stick in the mud.
I like Sam’s idea of involving the Russians. We should buy some Su-37s and MiG-31s while we’re at it. We may need them.
I’m sure that he’s not getting any kickbacks from the nuclear power industy for this, either. “Nuclear power will get us to Mars” is exactly the good PR the industry needs right now, in the midst of so many people being scared and/or disgruntled with nuclear reactors, and all of the problems they pose.
No, we’ll never get to Mars on biomass or wind energy, and it looks like that’s a trump card that the nuclear industry is going to play.