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Homer Hickam Speaks Out For Fission Rockets
jonerik writes: "Former NASA engineer Homer Hickam (perhaps best known for his 1998 memoir "Rocket Boys," which was turned into the 1999 motion picture "October Sky") has this article in Technology Review in which he advocates that the U.S. revive its nuclear rocket program of the '50s and '60s, arguing that nuclear-powered rockets are the only realistic way of opening up the rest of the solar system - particularly Mars - to human exploration."
NASA can't even keep all of their measurements in SI, and we're going to let them accelerate nuclear reactors to 17,500+mph?!?! what happens when the self destruct code has to be issued because some retard messed up the entire launch because he read a comma as a decimal: nuclear fallout? yes, nuclear fission powered craft are one of the only ways to get to where we want to go, but there are other options such as ion propulsion and some other innovative ideas floating around. also, the weight of the shielding around a nuclear reactor would make the craft horribly inefficient because it would be using all of the energy just to overcome gravity, rather than accelerating to never before seen speeds.
Heh, with the amount of stupid spelling errors coupled with what seems to be the neo-hippie speak, you seem to be just one of those types mentioned in an earlier article.
Dod you hear them say "nu-cl-ear" ? Better start running with your signs up to the nation capital! Hurry!
Dude, your repeated use of specifics gives an impression that you know what you're talking about, but your numbers are all fucked up.
1,000,000,000 seconds is 2,000,000 times 500 seconds, not 2,000 times.
There is no way 1000 square miles of material could encompass the sun, the surface area of the sun is much, much higher than this (the surface area of the earth is ~ 200 million square miles). Maybe you meant 1000 cubic miles of material? Or maybe you're just making shit up?
I stopped reading after that point...