meiza - 22/8/2007 3:15 PMWhy? For what?
kraisee - 22/8/2007 3:29 PMThe technical hurdle is that reliable enough nuclear propulsion technology is going to be at least 10 years away from the day they start funding the development - and right now project Prometheus has no money.I suspect that nuclear will be the way to go for the Mars program, but NASA's plans aren't expecting that until about 2030 at the very earliest, so they don't feel they need to start developing nuclear *anything* for another dozen years or more.Ross.
lambda0 - 23/8/2007 10:28 AMFor electric propulsion, the nuclear reactor SAFE-400 seems to be available, it has already been tested with a ion propulsion, in lab. This reactor produces 100 kW of electric power.
halkey - 26/8/2007 1:01 PMIt's good Ad Astra has a branch in Central America, hopefully it's immune to ITAR type export regulations.
A_M_Swallow - 26/8/2007 7:27 AMQuotehalkey - 26/8/2007 1:01 PMIt's good Ad Astra has a branch in Central America, hopefully it's immune to ITAR type export regulations. NATO export rules are NATO wide.
halkey - 26/8/2007 1:54 PMAd Astra Rocket, a private developer of the nuclear VASMIR engine, has just signed it's first commercial contract with a company in the Britain Isles. NASA might not be needed to develop or use nuclear propulsion/power in space. It's good Ad Astra has a branch in Central America, hopefully it's immune to ITAR type export regulations.http://www.adastrarocket.com/AdAstraPressRelease082107.pdfNote: This message was originally deleted and then reposted.
CuddlyRocket - 26/8/2007 10:21 AMIf it's possible to go non-nuclear, NASA will go non-nuclear. The PR would be a disaster otherwise, and NASA needs all the friends it can get. (Though other countries might have different attitudes.)Nuclear will come when we try to do something for which it is the only solution, or it produces vast cost savings. Neither of which are true for any near-time plans.
meiza - 26/8/2007 2:45 PMQuoteCuddlyRocket - 26/8/2007 10:21 AMIf it's possible to go non-nuclear, NASA will go non-nuclear. The PR would be a disaster otherwise, and NASA needs all the friends it can get. (Though other countries might have different attitudes.)Nuclear will come when we try to do something for which it is the only solution, or it produces vast cost savings. Neither of which are true for any near-time plans.Nuclear can also be a technically worse solution. It's just nonsensical conspiracy mongering saying how the wonderful nukes would solve all the spaceflight problems but the evil hippies are preventing their use. This is a very very general strand in threads handling anything nuclear in space, and I'm sick of it.