Nuclear Rockets Moving Along

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Posted by Hemos on Tuesday October 26, 2004 @01:53AM from the building-towards-tomorrow dept.

AKAImBatman writes "Bruce Behrhorst of NuclearSpace.com recently stumbled across a new engine from everyone's favorite Jet Engine maker, Pratt & Whitney. Unlike P&W's previous engines, however, this engine is not a jet, and is powered by Nuclear Fission. It seems that P&W has responded to the need for Mars transportation by inventing the first commercially viable nuclear thermal rocket. They have heavily improved upon the NERVA NRX design from the 60's, and have even solved the graphite ablation problem! With this new engine, it seems that an inexpensive trip to Mars is now firmly within our grasp. Will we rise to the challenge?"

10 of 620 comments (clear)

Phew! by grub · 2004-10-26 01:55 · Score: 5, Funny

and have even solved the graphite ablation problem

I was just lamenting over the seemingly unsolvable graphite ablation problem!

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Trolling is a art,
1. Re:Phew! by spellraiser · 2004-10-26 02:18 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Yeah, but why did it take so long? It's not exactly rocket science, now is it?
  Oh wait ...
  
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  I hear there's rumors on the Slashdots
Re:Not quite by Anonymous Coward · 2004-10-26 01:56 · Score: 5, Funny

It'll just have be renamed to the "Super fun happy propulsion device"
Nuclear subs by SimonShine · 2004-10-26 02:00 · Score: 5, Funny

So Nuclear subs have been operating in secret? Well, yeah...

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Re:No chance... by Pxtl · 2004-10-26 02:02 · Score: 5, Funny

Nuclear is only okay on things that are designed to kill people. Didn't you get the memo?
Re:Not quite by Paster+Of+Muppets · 2004-10-26 02:08 · Score: 4, Funny

New
Untried
CLever
Economically
Acheivable
Rocket

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Re: Silly public hysteria by dpbsmith · 2004-10-26 02:21 · Score: 3, Funny

It's too bad that silly public hysteria when they started filling the atmosphere with radioactive fallout in the 1950s doomed such projects (at least until those who remember the 1950s die off).

We coulda had Project Orion. We coulda sea-level canal across Nicaragua excavated by peaceful nuclear blasts. We coulda had electricity too cheap to meter.

All spoiled, spoiled I tell you. Just on account of a few dead sheep, some irradiated Japanese sailors, a few U.S. soldiers with cancer, a little bit of fogged film (cardboard cartons made from fallout-tainted woodpulp), and a few "Sunshine Units"-worth of strontium-90 in the milk. And some problems working the bugs out of Windscale, Detroit Fermi, Browns Ferry, Three Mile Island, and Chernobyl.

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Environmental concerns just ignored? by RealProgrammer · 2004-10-26 02:44 · Score: 3, Funny

>public fear of anything with the word 'nuclear' in it

We can't start polluting space with all of that radiation. It'll kill all the trees!

(For those of you who went to American public schools, a) space is a big place and b) it's pretty well irradiated already by all those pesky stars. There are no trees in space.)

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Re:Not quite by Control+Group · 2004-10-26 04:08 · Score: 4, Funny

As a rule, I don't reply to AC's.
But damn, that's the best "in Soviet Russia" joke I've ever seen on here, and it didn't say anything about Soviet Russia.
And if you'll just provide a billing address, I'll send you an invoice for post-nasal soda removal from my keyboard.

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Re:Not quite by NardofDoom · 2004-10-26 07:00 · Score: 3, Funny

The only way we'd accomplish that is with subliminable messages. Maybe we could put them on the Internets.

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