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

Re:I can imagine the protests now...

[Darth23]

You mean the way the TWO Space shuttles came crashing to Earth? Launches blow up ALL THE TIME. When they're not manned, it's no big deal and barely gets covered. Now a rocket with a little URANIUM or worse, PLUTONIUM..... THAT woudl get news overage.

Re:Two Words

[2short]

Space elevators, bah humbug!
They're a really neat idea, but I think they'll always be sci-fi. You need a cable whose length is about 6 times the radius of the earth, but which can support itself hung on end. So show me a material with that kind of strength to weight ratio. Then I'll ask you to show me how you can produce such a huge amount of it cheaply enough.
Finnally, I'll ask you to show me a launch mechanism that can get your incredibly massive cable up to geosyncronous orbit cheaply enough.
If you can show me that last one, I'll ask why we need a space elevator...

Even with nuclear license guvvies will fail

[Baldrson]

As demonstrated by Tate's article the guvvie boosters are still trying to rationalize away why progress in space stopped without copping to the real causes. They think they can address threats from the X-Prize by trumping with government authority over nuclear power but they're just going to open up a can of worms without a way to recap.

Spewing radiation all over hell and gone is a predictable reaction from the government types of course.

They'll probably be able to string the younger naive techies along for a while -- but really -- who do they think they're fooling anymore when the Congress votes overwhelmingly to import H-1b employees during an unemployment crisis and against the will of 86% of the voting public? They hate their technologists due to the fear that they will discover who really has the real power over technological civilization. Yhey just don't have any good way to extracate themselves from their responsibility for what they have done to the pioneering technological culture that was The United States. It was embodied in the baby boomer generation raised to think they were going to be the vanguard of life migrating off the planet -- and relegated to doing nothing more than building the Internet so they could then be outsourced to Asia. Spew radiation all you want guys -- it won't save your asses from judgement day.

Re:Two Words

[dave420]

Because you can hit a black-box recorder with your shoe for hours, and it won't explode and take the whole state with you. Any sort of fissile nuclear equipment like a reactor is going to be a lot more unstable than a glorified VCR-in-a-box.

Also, the thought of a country (especially one with a nutcase psycho leader) sailing nuclear reactors around over their heads doesn't exactly fill everyone with a feeling of warmth and kittens.