Clean Nuclear Launches?

AKAImBatman writes "When it comes to launching millions of pounds of material into space, nearly everyone knows about the Orion Project. Blow up a series of nuclear bombs under your dairy-aire and ride the explosion on up. Unfortunately, the Orion spewed out so much radiation that it just wasn't a feasible launch option. If we want commuter trips to space, we're going to have to find another way. Well, it turns out that NASA's been doing quite a bit of research on Gas Core Nuclear Rockets, an ultra-powerful nuclear rocket that puts out almost no radiation. This research has spurred a fascinating new generation of ideas on reaching the cosmos. Could inexpensive cruises to the moon happen within our lifetimes?"

Comments

Two Words

[Hell O'World]

Space Elevator. Everything else is too dangerous and expensive.

Re:Two Words

[IWorkForMorons]

Ok...I'll give you that. To get into space, a space elevator is probably a better idea. Two reason to continue developing nuclear engines:

1) We don't have space elevators. Simple as that. Until the day they are reality, we need something better then conventional rockets.

2) Once in space, either through the use of these rockets or a space elevator, these would be extremely useful for getting around the solar system, or at least roaming our backyard (the moon) or visiting next door (Mars).

IANARS (rocket scientist), but I enjoy learning about developments in space tech. The nuclear engine, while different versions having been developed and tested decades ago, still looks to be the next best thing in space travel.

Re:Two Words

[*weasel]

Funny, all the old space probes had nuclear powerplants and that all worked out just fine.

This is an education issue mainly.

If people can believe we have designed black boxes that survive being slammed into the Pennsylvania crust at 400 mph or the disintegration of its containing shuttle at 30000 feet - why is it a stretch to believe we can make a containment system for fissile material that would survive even catastrophic launch failure?

Re:Two Words

[Tackhead]

> Space Elevator. Everything else is too dangerous and expensive.

Two more words for you: Suspension bridge.

When you can build a 40,000-millimeter suspension bridge out of carbon nanotubes and cross the river near the campus materials lab building, then you can start fantasizing about a 40,000-kilometer space elevator.

Until then, NERVA is the only way to go. Everything else is still at the research stage.

Re:Two Words

[Phekko]

You forgot

3) How are we supposed to get the space elevator up in the first place?

Re:Two Words

[jridley]

You can't educate someone who doesn't want to be educated.

Remember when Cassini went up, with a little thermal nuclear battery? It would have taken something like a direct DU antitank round to split that casing; a crash never would have done it.

NASA pointed this out, repeatedly, and stated the very safe history of these devices. Nevertheless, there were swarms of people protesting at NASA. They showed footage of families with children crying; the parents had told them that the rocket was going to crash and the radiation would kill them all.

You can't reason with these people any more than you can reason with conspiracy theorists. They know what they "know" and if you tell them different, you're a god-damn liar.

This is the same reason that NMR is now called MRI. Nuclear bad, magnets good! If they put that magnet inside a pyramid, people would pay to sit inside it for no reason.

Re:Two Words

[random_static]

the tonnes of nuclear waste produced for which the only solution seems to be

"stick it in a fast reactor and use it again".

except that made the know-nothings even more scared of their own shadows, so politics and fear-mongering killed that too.

Or perhaps my irrationality extends to thinking that when the pigeons around the UK's nuclear waste processing plants are so radioactive they would be classed as nuclear waste themselves

if you think that proves anything about nuclear waste reprocessing as such, then you would indeed be thinking irrationally. if, however, you get a sneaking suspicion that the simple explanation - namely, that whoever operated that particular plant were a bunch of goofball morons who shouldn't have been trusted to operate a toaster - might after all be more likely, then perhaps there is still hope for your rationality and sense.

The problem with nuclear power is that it is made by humans and they have a habit of fucking up on a grand scale.

how, exactly, is that a problem with nuclear power?

that is a problem with people. don't blame nuclear power for your belonging to a race of goofball morons. if you let humanity's inherent flawedness scare you away from doing anything at all remotely dangerous - because, ohmygoddess, we might fuck it up somehow, because we are so goddamn motherfucking stupid, we can't trust ourselves with pointy sticks even, we might poke our eyes out, won't somebody think of the children - then nothing will ever get done. at all. by anybody.

yes, nuclear power carries some risks. so does every other damn thing you will ever think of. as a general rule of thumb, the more worthwhile and useful things you can think of will be proportionally more dangerous. that's life - deal with it.

Public Perception

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the biggest problems with anything Nulcear, be it power, subs, or rockets, there is a very negative public perception. You can tell people that it is safe all you want but there will always be that paranoia. It doesn't help that people don't neccesarily trust the government.

I can imagine the protests now...

[DaRat]

A few years back, I remember there being some amazingly loud protests from some anti-nuclear power folks about the dangers of a deep space probe going up with a nuclear power source. Those folks were worried about the danger if the rocket blew up on the pad or the 1 in 100,000 or so chance the probe would hit the earth on one of its acceleration orbits.

Just imagine how happy these folks will be with a nuclear powered rocket, even if the scientific community claims that they are safe. After all, it's nuclear related, so it's gotta be bad!! (tongue firmly in cheek)

Re:I can imagine the protests now...

[mcc]

What the protesters didn't tell you--probably because they couldn't be bothered enough to research they'd know this-- is that (1) we'd been putting up reactors on spacecrafts for years and years and (2) the reactor was one of the most mind-bogglingly safe imaginable, if the entire reactor was blown up or disentigrated in the atmosphere the radioactive material would still be able to hold together well enough that at worst it would split together into a couple of chunks so solid you could pick them up and hold them...

My suspicion is that Nuclear technology will get nowhere in the United States until people stop calling it that, due to the huge political movement to make sure no one uses anything with "nuclear" in the name, regardless of the safety, degree of research, or degree of oversight. I'd propose scientists start using some other word, like "happytronic", but this would probably be seen through as "hollow PR from the nuclear industry". (That's another thing. People promoting nuclear energy are often derided as "Nuclear Industry Shills", but people attacking it are never successfully labelled as "Coal Industry Shills", despite the fact that's who they're primarily helping. How is this?)

This is the primary promise Fusion offers IMHO-- because oh, it isn't nuclear, it's "Fusion", right? Which means people will actually use it.

Perhaps we should start researching some kind of "hybrid" technique, which would allow the creation of reactors that can be claimed to be "fusion" although they're actually just fission reactors with some kind of technique involved that has something vaguely to do with fusion.

Re:My favorite part...

[Anonymous Coward]

Call me back when there is none.

Quick, someone ban the sun.

And stop people from living in Denver or flying on planes or going skiing in the mountains.

And let's not forget xray machines, cathode ray tubes (TVs and computer monitors to you non-engineers).

And what about that deadly substance known as "granite" that releases radioactive radon?

Well

[cubicledrone]

Could inexpensive cruises to the moon happen within our lifetimes?"

No.

See, here's the problem:

Nothing is permitted any more without a "business case" being made for it. No document, no invention, no idea, no presentation is countenanced unless it has 20% annual growth and the accountants and the management committee sign off on it.

Since it is impossible to get a bureaucracy to sign off on anything, nothing is permitted at all.

Small businesses and entrepreneurs are starved for capital. Large businesses and management committees have substantial capital, but refuse to invest it. Therefore, there is no capital; or, if there is, it is usually totally inadequate.

Middle management has a perfect series of questions for ideas like this. There is nothing in the world easier than criticizing an idea. Questions like "what do we need that for?" and "yeah, but how do you know it will work?" or "how can you be sure that will sell?" These questions are asked as if an answer is expected. The questions are followed by the comments: "It'll never work," and "sounds expensive" and "why can't we just use $OTHER_IDEA?"

But no answer is expected. The people asking the questions simply want to see how well the "idea person" can ad lib and how many bullshit one-liners and jokes they can reply with. After the middle managers have been entertained, a cocktail party laugh will circle the room, and the idea person will be escorted out of the building and into obscurity as the five-foot-wide-asses return to their bean salads.

As long as this continues, the rate of invention and "innovation" will be reduced to unmeasurably small levels. No vision, idea or invention can surmount well-funded cynicism. Brilliant, well-educated people's minds are being wasted because they report to lying, cheat fuck, greed-driven managers.

Middle management routinely turns its back on paying customers and competition-less markets. How the fuck are they ever going to accept a new "unproven" idea?

They won't.