Nuclear Rockets Moving Along

Not quite by DarkHand · 2004-10-26 01:54 · Score: 4, Insightful

Too bad the public fear of anything with the word 'nuclear' in it will grind this project to a halt. :(

Re:Not quite by EvilCowzGoMoo · 2004-10-26 01:56 · Score: 5, Insightful

I don't think 'nuclear' alone will ground the rocket. It will however be the scapegoat for any little problem that may arise.
Re:Not quite by Surt · 2004-10-26 03:25 · Score: 3, Insightful

The saddest part is that he mis-pronounces it on purpose to _gain_ votes.

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Re:Not quite by VultureMN · 2004-10-26 05:48 · Score: 2, Insightful

I think people's biggest concern is the possibility of a bunch of radioactive crap floating around the atmosphere.

Now, I personally trust the engineers to create a containment device that wouldn't fail even in a challenger-type KABOOM, but a lot of people won't.
Re:Not quite by AKAImBatman · 2004-10-26 06:05 · Score: 2, Insightful

If you think superheated hydrogen with enough force to drive a rocket along isn't "pressurized", what would you define as pressurized?

That would be the *work* you're doing with the reactor. Pressurized reactors (like the PWR and LWR designs) are closed loop systems that attempt to both cool the reactor and power a turbine with the same working fluid. (Or possibly two fluid loops with a heat exchanger in between.) The problem with these designs is that if the reactor goes super-critical, the pressure will build up and a boiler explosion will result. That's why we don't build those designs anymore. They're death traps.

In this design, there is no working fluid passing through the reactor. The reactor itself is sealed, and will scram itself if the reaction gets out of control.

Listen, Rei, I have generally found you to be a very intelligent person, and often find myself agreeing with what you have to say. But in this case, comparing the safety of PWRs to modern reactor designs is exactly like comparing the safety of a modern diesel engine to that of a 19th century locomotive engine. The locomotive engines exploded quite a bit (killing a LOT of people), yet no one even suggests the issue of a diesel engine blowing up and killing people.

If you want to know the true travesty of shunning nuclear power, look at the statistics for the number of people killing in non-nuclear boiler explosions. Then look at the number of people killed by coal emissions. Then look at the number of people killed in the ENTIRE history of nuclear power. If you use official figures (rather than the "Chernobyl blew up, therefore it killed MILLIONS" nonsense), less than 100 people have died from nuclear power. Are those people's deaths a tragedy? Yes. But the 4,000 - 12,000 people killed in London in 1952 was a greater tragedy. As were the thousands of men killed maintaining boilers for propulsion and electricity.

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Re:Not quite by OrangeTide · 2004-10-26 06:30 · Score: 3, Insightful

Well the shuttle program was originally designed to shuttle cargo and people to an Earth orbit space station. Then from the space station you could go to the Moon, Mars, whatever. If you could safely transport a nuke rocket to Earth orbit and launch and return to a space station (ISS?), then I would think the risk would be much lower. Assuming you were able to fling an old nuke rocket away from the earth when you no longer wanted it. Rather than letting it sink into the atmosphere and burn up.

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“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire

No chance... by mOoZik · 2004-10-26 01:57 · Score: 2, Insightful

...this will ever be used. Not because it is dangerous, uneconomical, or anything even remotely having to do with reason. Nay. Rather, because the public has a knee-jerk reaction to the word "nuclear," or "atomic," or "nucular." Fact hardly matters in the opinions of an uneducated, uninformed public.

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Re:No chance... by Morgahastu · 2004-10-26 01:59 · Score: 4, Insightful

So Nuclear subs have been operating in secret?
Re:No chance... by AKAImBatman · 2004-10-26 02:00 · Score: 5, Insightful

That's why it's up to you, me, slashdot, and anyone else who cares about space travel, to make it clear to the public that "Nuclear" is not a dirty word. Odd as it may sound, two thirds of Americans are currently in favor of nuclear power! If we can keep that number rising, perhaps the public will finally ditch their ridiculous fear!

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Re:No chance... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-10-26 02:07 · Score: 5, Insightful

Odd as it may sound, two thirds of Americans are currently in favor of nuclear power!

Most Americans are in favor of garbage dumps too as long as it's not in their back yard and their taxes don't increase.
Re:No chance... by gobbo · 2004-10-26 02:17 · Score: 4, Insightful

I, like many of those in your two-thirds 'statistic,' am not afraid of fission. I'm afraid of idiots who don't know what to do with the products of fission, but take on the job anyway and truck it to some underground facility. I'm afraid of a for-profit utility that cuts corners. I'm afraid of backroom legistlation that looks the other way for the "Mr. Burns" in your town. In other words, the social risks need to be considered, for they are as significant as any technical issue. No different from building a dam upstream; do you want them to bid on the job based on cut-rate concrete? In this issue, the risks are potentially very large and long-lasting, and technology simply isn't enough.

So the fear isn't ridiculous; what's ridiculous is looking at the problem like a technocrat.

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Damn those pesky terrorists
Re:No chance... by danila · 2004-10-26 02:35 · Score: 5, Insightful

The fear is ridiculous because nuclear plants have an excellent track records, because modern designs are inherently safe, because nuclear waste is compact and relatively easy to store. You counter this with some generic arguments about "cutting corners". Yeah, I am not afraid of building libraries per se, but rather of idiots who build them using a lot of asbestos and poor materials so that they make every reader sick and then eventually collapse, burying hundreds of people underneath the ruins. So let's not build libraries, right?

You completely fail to grasp the real picture, as if you don't understand a definition of risk. Let me clarify - risk is not that the sky is falling, it's that there is a certain measurable uncertanty over the sky's future position, which we must take into account.

In real world the risks related to nuclear energy are small. Contrary to what you and your alarmist friends may believe, building a new nuclear reactor doesn't mean a Chernobyl and Hiroshima combined for everyone in 1000 km radius.

P.S. If you think only technocrats know basic math and are rational, that's rather sad.

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Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
Re:No chance... by CrimsonAvenger · 2004-10-26 02:42 · Score: 1, Insightful

A couple things:
SS1 didn't use ammonia and rubber. Laughing gas and rubber, but no ammonia.
Nuclear fission isn't evil. It isn't especially dangerous. It won't mutate your kids, or the cows, or the grass. If your first thoughts on hearing the words "nuclear fission" are Chernobyl or Three Mile Island (or even Hiroshima), then you're neither educated nor informed about the subject of nuclear fission.

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"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Re:No chance... by mwood · 2004-10-26 02:43 · Score: 4, Insightful

Except for all those contaminated fish. I have photos. (Not secret or amateur stuff either; this was published in the Time-Life Science Library decades ago.)

It's "okay" to do nuke stuff underwater because the people who shout the loudest *think* it not harmful, just as above-water nuke stuff is evil because the same people *think* it is evil.

Nuclear policy is probably one of the best arguments for keeping the common man away from the levers of government, alas. We know less than we should about cleaning up power reactor accidents, for example, not because nobody bothered to wonder about it, but because Congress got wind of the SPERT trials and realized they'd never survive the public finding out that we were deliberately making experimental reactors fail in order to understand how to deal with the real thing. (Not to say that we know a lot about cleaning up the mess from coal-fired plants, waste from manufacturing photovoltaic cells, etc. either....)
Re:No chance... by Average_Joe_Sixpack · 2004-10-26 03:53 · Score: 2, Insightful

The problem is that mankind has never proven it could build any structure to last the time needed weather the half life of these radioactive elements. Building a "permanent" underground facility will need to last ten's of thousands of years.

Quirks and Quarks did a great story on these nuclear waste storage scenarios in September.
Re:No chance... by Control+Group · 2004-10-26 03:58 · Score: 2, Insightful

Please do. If there was a way for me to vote to build a nuclear power plant in the nearest place possible to my house, I would.
Unfortunately, blatant fear-mongering by the environmental movement have resulted in even those of us who would be more than happy to live near a nuclear plant being unable to.
I'd much rather have a nuclear plant in my neighborhood than a coal plant or a garbage dump, yet we've got plenty of both of those.

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Reality has a conservative bias: it conserves mass, energy, momentum...

Re:Mars? by hoggoth · 2004-10-26 02:00 · Score: 4, Insightful

> Perhaps they should solve other problems of being able to visit Mars such as its gravitation and the fact that the surface is quite uninhabitable.

Last I heard, both Earth orbit and the Moon are quite uninhabitable, yet we've visited both of those.

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when will people learn our focus should be energy? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-10-26 02:04 · Score: 5, Insightful

Exploration of mars should be second on our list of things to do in the US. Number one should be to have a clear goal on replacing oil as the main source of energy within, say 10 years. Then the US government can shift it energy policy from war to something that benefits us and the world. Why can't we say, ok, first, lets get this urgent problem behind us, and then focus on the next big thing.

Re:Safety Question by Anonymous Coward · 2004-10-26 02:10 · Score: 1, Insightful

We've already put dozens of nuclear-powered spacecraft into orbit and beyond.

Inexpensive? by Goo.cc · 2004-10-26 02:11 · Score: 2, Insightful

A trip to Mars will be many things, but it won't be inexpensive.

Re:Safety Question by honestmonkey · 2004-10-26 02:13 · Score: 4, Insightful

This engine is not designed (as far as I can tell, I didn't actually read the entire article or anything radical like that) for use in the atmosphere. It would be carted up into NEO and attached to whatever ship is going to Mars. The fuel can be put in containers that would survive an accident on liftoff. All in all it's no worse a problem than any other liftoff. And it's probably one of the only realistic ways to get to Mars.

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Everything you know is wrong, Just forget the words and sing along.

On the bright side... by sh0dan · 2004-10-26 02:14 · Score: 1, Insightful

We'll at least have some impressive fireworks, when one of these fail.

Re:Safe Nuclear Power is a Myth! by prgrmr · 2004-10-26 02:16 · Score: 2, Insightful

Nothing is 100% safe; consequently the real question is "what is the acceptable rate of failure?".

You're kidding, right? by Omega697 · 2004-10-26 02:31 · Score: 3, Insightful

With this new engine, it seems that an inexpensive trip to Mars is now firmly within our grasp. Will we rise to the challenge?

There are so many other things standing in our way before we get to Mars, it's not even funny. Do you seriously think that we only need a good rocket to get to Mars? There's no way any trip to Mars in the next 50 years will be considered "inexpensive".

Wrong risk by MemeRot · 2004-10-26 03:11 · Score: 4, Insightful

The risk I worry about isn't Chernobyl. It's waste products that have been stored in metal barrels for decades. This country has an abysmal record on safely disposing toxic waste products of all kinds, and there STILL is not a single site working site for permanent disposal of nuclear waste (which will change with Yucca mountain I know). Too bad many experts say that Yucca mountain is seismically unstable....

The problem with nuclear energy is a false economy. How much expense will running Yucca mountain for the next 10,000 years rack up? How much of its running expenses are currently subsidized by the federal government? That offsets any advantages nuclear fission has in my opinion.

Fusion obviously has none of those problems, and research into it is drastically underfunded. If the government funded a research program on 1/10 the scale of the Manhattan project into fusion I'm convinced it would become a viable power source and overshadow any of the other alternative energy sources being talked about.

Re:Wrong risk by zophim · 2004-10-26 04:20 · Score: 0, Insightful

"waste products in barrels", you mean like the ones featured in the movie "robo cop"? I liked that part at the end when that guy got all messed up from the toxic waste and then the car hit him and he popped like a water baloon. Scary.

I don't think toxic waste dumping has been an issue for Americans for decades.

Yucca Mountain is not "unstable", theres a small chance there could be an earthquake out here, I live in Salt Lake City and we never get earthquakes, if we do they are so small you can't feel them. I believe Nevada is about the same. Even if there were a huge earthquake, mountains won't be crumbling, you know.

My personal belief is that renewable energy will become more profitable in the near future and nuclear power will be less important for domestic power, more important as a mobile power source. The disposal of waste is not such a serious problem. The half-life of uranium is only 29 years and is considered safe after about 300 years. That is not such a long time. The only problem I see is transportation, terrorists would be eager to get their hands on a few kilo's of nuclear waste. Your fears that it will be too expensive are nutty, go do some research.

Fusion research is eating billions of dollars of government money every year, and it is just kicking up. Fusion has more problems with nuclear contamination, the tritium used in a fusion reactor is much more dangerous than uranium for humans, the reactor radiates its shielding, requires a lot more maintenance given the higher temperatures a fusion reactor operates at. I'm all for fusion research, for the good of science, but I'm not convinced that fusion is the miracle people make it out to be. Cold fusion would be nice, but warm fusion is extremely difficult and may prove never to be profitable. It will all come back to renewable power, and simple fission reactors in space, undersea, aircraft carriers, etc. There is a lot more nuclear fuel to be found in the earth than petrol, and when you weigh the two, nuclear fission produces far less pollution than petrol. Even if you were to process petrol in a fuel cell, it would produce billions of tons of waste.

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Re:Wrong risk by feidaykin · 2004-10-26 05:24 · Score: 2, Insightful

This country has an abysmal record on safely disposing toxic waste products of all kinds
Bush actually signed a document saying "the Air Force base near Groom Lake, Nevada" (that's Area 51) can simply ignore any safety protocols for disposing of toxic waste. Now, I'm no tin-foil hat and I seriously doubt there is anything of E.T. origin at Area 51, but I do wonder just what sort of mess they've made there, and where they are dumping it.

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"To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit." -Stephen Hawking

Because sometimes solving one problem helps by Shivetya · 2004-10-26 03:12 · Score: 2, Insightful

The space program is full of good side effects that many never expected. You can get a whole lot more imagination going when you propose magnificent problems to scientist.

Mundane problems generate less interest which usually means they never get solved completely.

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* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.

Don't dismiss the fear... by Ba3r · 2004-10-26 03:16 · Score: 2, Insightful

First off, I am totally in support of nuclear power

That being said, to dismiss the fear as ridiculous is unfortunately as narrow minded and confined a view as the fear itself.

Quite simply: People (even the smart ones) are nervous about nuclear power because of two major reasons

The magnitude of damage when something goes wrong (ignoring the statistical chances, if Murphy's law doesn't alert this to you, Chernobyl and 3 Mile Island should)
The unwanted side effect of wide spread use of nuclear power: nuclear proliferation. Simply said, nuclear power is the technique of harnessing the massive power of atomic energy. Should many people know how to do this, and the materials be widely available, its that much easer for a small group (i.e. osama) to have a big impact. As the recent news that yet more weapons were stolen from the most protective organization in the world (US Army), we should once again accept that if these materials are made in high quantity and distributed widely, someone who shouldn't, will get their hands on it.

Nuclear power has so much potential to assist humanity, but we need to understand the legitimate fears before we can approach those who are afraid of its equally great potential to destroy humanity, and try to convince them to look to the future rather than to the past.

Re:Don't dismiss the fear... by Ba3r · 2004-10-26 07:24 · Score: 4, Insightful

As I said I am all for nuclear power; as I realize the statistics are in favor of it over other sources of energy. In my parent post my aim was to prevent people, such as yourself, from stubbornly denouncing the counter-arguments (and their derived fears) against nuclear power, as you did.

Now, just to be patronizing and make sure you understand I will repeat: I am for nuclear power, because statistically it is Safer, and I think that most uses of nuclear power will not lead to proliferation.

HOWEVER, the fears mentioned are not completly illegitamite, and it is essential we understand them to convice people otherwise.

Sure, coal power is far more deadly to society as a whole, but people (think they) understand how coal works and how it kills people (suffocation, burning, crushing, carcinogens). People aren't as familiar with nuclear power, and the idea that so little can be so powerful gives them the willies.

The second point I find far more persuasive against nuclear power. If nuclear power is used in more industries, and more often, then it is invariably exposed (both in terms of concepts and engineering, and raw materials) to more people. The more people it is exposed too, the less secure it is and more possible (statistically!) that one of those people might not be worthy of entrusting with such powerful concepts/materials. Whether or not the nuclear power will be sent to Mars, silently glide 300m below the water off the Siberian coastline, or power an office building, the more widespread it is, the greater the potential that someone who wants to abuse it will get access.

Since you so drastically misunderstood my post, I will yet again, since I am still frustrated, emphasize that I am For nuclear power and I Agree with the rational, and obvious conculsions you felt necessary to post but I understand that others are not aware of this, and you stubbornly denouncing them as ignorant and blasting out facts will Not quell their fears. You must Understand those fears, especially the legitimate points of those fears, and then maybe you won't copy and paste your canned "Now sit and think for a moment which technology is more dangerous" response, which is part of the reason We pro-nuclear power people never get anywhere. phew!

our focus should be freedom by npongratz · 2004-10-26 03:21 · Score: 5, Insightful

Are you serious??? You want the United States to focus on one scientific goal? You are saying, in effect, that even though there are well over 290 million people in the US, each and every citizen should be forced by the government to be focused solely on what you think is the Right Thing(tm). Give me a break!

The US is still (ostensibly) a free market, capitalist country. Each citizen and industry is free to pursue their own interests. And yes, that even includes interests that might not fit perfectly into narrow-minded people's ideas of what is Best For The Country(tm).

Thanks to visionaries pursuing their unique interests in a free market economy, non-conformists have made leaps of creativity and ingenuity that have created some of the most helpful technologies used around the world. Don't ruin it for the rest of us with your command-and-control utopia.

Re:our focus should be freedom by Anonymous Coward · 2004-10-26 09:00 · Score: 1, Insightful

He is saying it should be our "number one goal"(tm) NOT that it should be our "single overiding goal to the complete exclusion of everything else"(tm), and weaning the american economic and indstrial infrastructure off of oil is NOT a scientific goal it is an economic and indstrial one.

Where the heck did this "America is a Free Market, Capitalist Country of 290 Million Individualists"(tm) rant come from?

Michael Samuel

Not quite... accurate by Mulletproof · 2004-10-26 03:35 · Score: 4, Insightful

You simplify this too much. The public tends to fear nuclear power because very specific groups spin nuclear power as the evil demonic force opposed to mother nature. These same groups often use nuclear power as fear-leverage in politics. "Gasp! They want to open up more evil nuclear powerplants and refineries that pollute and readioactivate! Don't vote for them or your child wil grow up with 5 arms! Nuclear waste spill across the highways and nich impreganable underground containment will leak into the ground water, killing us all in several thousand years assuming our technology doesn't advance whatsoever from this point forward. Fear teh nuk3z!"

It's simple to say the public fears it. It's important to know who is driving that fear.

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Re:Not quite... accurate by rsborg · 2004-10-26 07:03 · Score: 2, Insightful

It's simple to say the public fears it. It's important to know who is driving that fear.
Next Step... counter the fear. Problem is there's no direct pro-nuclear groups/funding out there. So we have to do it ourselves.
Here's a good book on how to counter an agenda
(note: it's not clear that anti-nuclear is clearly a right-wing agenda).

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Suggestion... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-10-26 05:07 · Score: 2, Insightful

Finish cleaning up the mess your old toys made before you ask for new toys.

Then it might be a bit easier to convince the public that new applications of nuclear power are safe and cost effective.

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