Petition to Test Nuclear power in space

[Ezechiel]

Nuclear power in space? Petition asks White House to rekindle project - Cosmic Log

Back in the 1960s, Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and its industrial partners set upProject NERVA, which stands for Nuclear Energy for Rocket Vehicle Application. The idea was to use a nuclear reactor to heat up liquid hydrogen propellant and blast a rocket out of Earth orbit. A trip to the moon would take just 24 hours. Going to Mars? You could make the voyage in just four months.

Makes sense... if you're in a hurry to explore using 'current' technology. I'd be happier if they would focus on speeding up the development of nuclear fusion instead. Would open up a whole lot more doors.

The petition needs 25,000 online supporters by Feb. 2 to trigger a White House response. So far it has ... three, including VanAlstine.

Oh boy...

 

[Randall]

Good post. This looks a lot like the stuff Friedman was involved with back in his days as a nuclear physicist. I concur with your view that fusion research should be a priority. Don't waste money on 1960s fission technology. It would be like trying to resurrect the steam engine compared to what fusion could do for us. This would also have been an excellent post for our A Science Minute | The Paracast Community Forums. There are a couple of short fusion power videos there too:

 

[stonehart]

Nuclear power in space? Petition asks White House to rekindle project - Cosmic Log

Makes sense... if you're in a hurry to explore using 'current' technology. I'd be happier if they would focus on speeding up the development of nuclear fusion instead. Would open up a whole lot more doors.



Oh boy...

About bloody time! ... and yes Fusion not fission is the idea but for me any thing is better than how things are right now.

 

[Randall]

About bloody time! ... and yes Fusion not fission is the idea but for me any thing is better than how things are right now.

I'd like to see advancements in space exploration too, but I can't help but think that the billions that go into reinventing this steam engine would help fusion succeed in a much shorter time. We don't really need to go anywhere else so bad right now that we can't wait until we can build some decent ships. Of course all that being said, it would still be something cool to witness this in our lifetime. So the question is: Do we trade far better technology in a shorter time for our more immediate and somewhat lesser gratification?

 

[stonehart]

I'd like to see advancements in space exploration too, but I can't help but think that the billions that go into reinventing this steam engine would help fusion succeed in a much shorter time. We don't really need to go anywhere else so bad right now that we can't wait until we can build some decent ships. Of course all that being said, it would still be something cool to witness this in our lifetime. So the question is: Do we trade far better technology in a shorter time for our more immediate and somewhat lesser gratification?

I to would like to see wider exploration in the short term, but I personally think we need to put the time and money into Fusion not as you say re inventing the steam engine with fission.
Then again I am still reasonably young (not quite 40 yet) so hey I could conceivably see deep missions in my life time.

Then again if the singularity happens anytime soon I could be around a heck of a lot longer ... Yeah we may not be jumping from one star system to the next yet but I feel we are living in interesting times, because I perceive that we are very close to becoming a meta 1 civilization.

For all of these problems we are seeing I feel are simply the growing pains of a civilization that has out grown the old ways of thinking and doing things.

Take money for starters, it has served us well for a long time but now it is more of a hindrance than a help and is in fact stagnating human potential not helping it.

anyway I am off topic lol.