While not wishing to get into a debate on this that might take this thread to far off topic it depends if you want to adopt that cynical approach to the future of power generation.
Quote from: catdlr on 04/06/2015 09:32 pmmainline news article:VASIMR Rocket Could Send Humans To Mars In Just 39 Dayshttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/06/vasimr-rocket-mars_n_7009118.html?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00000592Why is it that Zubrin seems to have taken personal umbrage with this technology?
mainline news article:VASIMR Rocket Could Send Humans To Mars In Just 39 Dayshttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/06/vasimr-rocket-mars_n_7009118.html?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00000592
Quote from: Star One on 04/06/2015 09:45 pmQuote from: catdlr on 04/06/2015 09:32 pmmainline news article:VASIMR Rocket Could Send Humans To Mars In Just 39 Dayshttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/06/vasimr-rocket-mars_n_7009118.html?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00000592Why is it that Zubrin seems to have taken personal umbrage with this technology?Remember that Zubrin takes umbrage at ALL technology development programs, and all Mars mission concepts that did not launch yesterday.
Remember that Zubrin takes umbrage at ALL technology development programs, and all Mars mission concepts that did not launch yesterday.
At the moment there isn't a such thing as a space reactor so how can you tell?
In that case then there are space rated nuclear reactors...so what were we arguing about again?
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/01/010103073253.htm
Yeah, that's the draw back with any type of advanced fission tech. At least fusion reactors aren't immediately a weaponization threat. Though anything that can approach relativistic speed or even just orbital speed is by default a terrible potential for misuse.
That would require huge amounts of an exotic isomer of americium.If that was available in the large quantities needed for a reactor, I think you'd be better off doing nuclear pulse propulsion instead. Though the possibility of a nuke in a hand-grenade form factor terrifies me as far as Earth applications are concerned.
OK lets keep going with this Hummer/Prius analogy, it is kind of amusing.
The flaw in your hill analogy is that EML1 is not the top of a hill, it is more like the lip of the grand canyon with the canyon being the Earths gravity well (it's not literally C3=0 but its very close). Once your up on the plateau (heliocentric space) it is perfectly flat and the Prius is free to accelerate. If you were going to use a Hummer to push a Prius you would do it going up the side of the canyon UNTIL you got to the lip, not after that point.
Your correct that we can just depart from EML1 directly to Earth Escape without doing any swing buys of the moon or Earth. And the DeltaV is VIRTUALLY THE SAME. The Chemical high thrust system gets a LITTLE boost of something like 100 m/s from plunging deep into thouse gravity wells and burning with an Oberth effect.