You know, given your location and my location, I’ve been laughing for 10 minutes now. Thanks.
If we look at the old NERVA designs the ship should be able provide 330 kN thrust with an ISP of 900. Now the Saturn V had a thrust of 10 times greater but and ISP 1/3 that of the NTR. So your thrust is less but you can thrust 3 times longer per mass amount of propellant. It feeds back on its self too; the less propellant you need the “lighter” your spacecraft etc.
You might be thinking of the ion drive that Deep Space I used. There they ionized xenon gas and used that. The thrust was small but the duration was ridiculously long (compared to chemical rockets). A NTR provides a high energy density.
Well the current contracts look like extentions of the RTG’s and solar panels currently used. Still improving those will improve mission power profiles. Still no nuclear rocket though.
Rumor has it that Bush is going to announce a return to the Moon on the anniversary of the Wright’s first flight. However, Bush the elder announced something similar when he was in office, you can see how far we’ve progressed on that.
Some times I think that we may be on the brink of a new era in space exploration. Nuclear rockets are on the drawing board. We’ve flown ion drives. The Chinese have entered the race. The Space Shuttle is clearly on its last legs, and some form of new craft will be required to replace it. Private space enterprise is starting to flourish, and we may see the first privately launched man in space this year.
If we go back to the moon this time, it may be with one of those more powerful rockets that are on the drawing boards right now. That will give us more payload capacity. Maybe the thinking now is that a regular Earth-Moon run will be what’s needed to develop the technologies for a Mars trip.
Item #1: Note that space is only 20 miles vertically upwards.
Item #2: The last time fissile materials were placed within a hundred miles of US soil, the US did not like it one little bit, and almost started WWIII.
Item#3:
Would the US allow a nuclear powered Chinese craft to pass over its airspace? (This is what the US is asking other countries to allow.)
As to the numbers and mechanics of this modern day project Orion, this thread covers it nicely: A spacecraft holding one million nuclear warheads could hit a tenth of the speed of light within three months.
Say it with me now, SPACE ELEVATOR. We need a SPACE ELEVATOR. Latest estimates are ~40 Billion to develop and build a space elevator over ten years. Government revenue for the US is what, 2.6 Trillion per year? So we’re talking 1/650 of the budget per year for ten years and we’re there? Considering our current deficit of 500B(and climbing), I don’t see this as beyond the government’s capabilities. Hell, 40B is almost cheap enough for private ownership. If Mr Gates ever wants to redeem himself in the eyes of history, he could build one and then build himself a nice condo on the space station in geosync to retire in.
But Sentient it’s not an Orion style craft. link It’s likely just a heavily energized ion rocket. The massive advantage is that the power plant allows for highly energetic tools. No more receiving 1 uW of data, actual ground penetrating radar, no need for solar panels the size of small cities.
You know, I’m all for the space elevator, but I think the critical mass isn’t there yet. I’d rather see private enterprise continue to pursue longer nanotube strands on its own (which it’s already doing, no NASA help needed), and then have NASA step in when it’s been shown that it’s possible to manufacture such things in such lengths.
It’ll happen in its own time, IMO, without the need for any Apollo-like push.
What else does NASA have to do? The shuttle is scuttled for the near future and has serious, possibly insurmountable issues(both technical and political/popular). The ISS is a toy, especially without the orbiter. The Russians are facing lots of trouble on the ground in their country which I fear may very soon take away from their participation in space.
The Apollo program cost ~25Billion between '61 and '72. The Inflation calculator from the Bureau of Labor Statistics converts 10,000 in '61 dollars into 61,939.80 '03 dollars. So 25B in '61 would be 154,849,500,000 (~155B) in '03 dollars. A space elevator would cost roughly 1/4 of what the Apollo program cost. If we use the other end of the spectrum and use 25B in '72 dollars, then Apollo would still cost 110,765,550,000(~111B or ~2.5 times what a space elevator would cost). I think it is well worth it. A push between 1/4 and 1/3 of what Apollo cost and we’ll have a permanent way to get payload into geosync for a fraction of the cost(and risk) of any of our current delivery mechanisms.
I agree some more work needs to be done to get the nanotubes in a state where they could be used for an elevator, but I think that work could be done by NASA and is generally figured in the costs of the elevator.
All I’ll say is, I’m going to be bitterly disappointed if there isn’t at least one manned exploration mission to Mars within my lifetime.
I’m 34, and given the current political and economic climate, along with what appears to be the current direction of society and the conventional wisdom about the next couple of decades of technological development, I make the odds around fifty-fifty.
Thanks.