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Russia Develops Spaceship With Nuclear Engine
Matt_dk writes "The Russian Federal Space Agency Roscosmos has developed a design for a piloted spacecraft powered by a nuclear engine, the head of the agency said on Wednesday. 'The project is aimed at implementing large-scale space exploration programs,' Anatoly Perminov said at a meeting of the commission on the modernization of the Russian economy. He added that the development of Megawatt-class nuclear space power systems (MCNSPS) for manned spacecraft was crucial for Russia if the country wanted to maintain a competitive edge in the space race, including the exploration of the Moon and Mars."
It would be interesting to know if the technology includes any stipulation for nuclear pulse propulsion. From the sound of it, that tech was pretty far along over 30 years ago. Space is a big place - would it not be awesome to have a new space race, MINUS the aggression, this time? Or is that simply impossible?
Check out this book: http://books.google.com.au/books?id=zmpxV1ygjvsC
One of the best collected references on the nuclear thermal rocket propulsion development program that I've ever read.. and almost all the pages are available online.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Well, satellites with nuclear reactors haven't always managed to keep from releasing significant amounts of radiation onto earth. The concerns might be overblown, but as far as I can tell, most scientists do consider the problem of designing nuclear reactors for launch such that they won't leak radiation in a disaster a fairly significant one. It's even been cited (pp. 39-41) as a major motivator for research into fusion-powered spacecraft propulsion, since fusion can in principle achieve similar acceleration characteristics without having to worry about disaster-proofing a payload of radioactive material. (The downside is that we can build lots of fission-powered things today, practically, but not so for fusion-powered things.)
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Well, actually
"Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down
That's not my department," says Wernher von Braun
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
But who cares about Canada anyway.
Hey! Canada's not a joke, Eh!
Fixed that for you.
Fixed that fix for you, Eh never starts the sentence up here, it ends it. For starting we use "Hey" just like you do down south of the line
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
NASA massive?
Social Security is massive.
The military is massive.
Medicare is massive.
Welfare is massive.
Medicaid is massive.
The "War on Terror" is massive.
Department of Health and Human Services isn't so massive, but it's larger than NASA's budget by a factor of four.
Department of Education? bigger than NASA.
Discretionary spending? yep, bigger than NASA.
VA? You might be starting to see a pattern - yes, it's bigger than NASA.
HUD? ditto.
State Department and Foreign Aid? bigger than NASA.
Department of Homeland Security? Still bigger than NASA.
This isn't a conclusive listing of all the things in the Federal Budget that are larger than NASA. What is actually is is a list of all the things in the Federal Budget that would still be bigger than NASA if we doubled NASA's budget.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Headline: Russia Develops
Subline: has developed a design
Article text: the draft design would be finalized by 2012
Translation: we're drawing stuff. we're going to draw more stuff
FACT: The picture is of an RD-410, a 7 tonne thrust nuclear thermal/LH2, developed by Glushko for the N-1 during 1960-61 under Korolev. It was abandoned in 1963 when Korolev chose nuclear/ion as a preferable technology, and Glushko dropped it in favor of the gas core reactor design.
Except for a few motors (mainly Glushko's) intended for the N-1 and some early nuclear thermal/ammonia long range missiles, Russia's nuclear motors have been intended for Mars missions. The designs were all fair to good, the planning rational. However, during the first decade of design funding was increasingly, then entirely, diverted to Korolev's N-1 booster, counterpart to the Saturn V, on which Soviet moon race hopes were pinned. After the 3 July 1969 explosion of the N-1, funding became scarce for all design work. In the 1 Sept 1969 post mortem report for the Soviet space program, Kamanin lists among the mistakes Korolev and Mishin's rejections of Glushko's motors.
Since relinquishing the moon landing, all Russian nuclear motors have been intended for Mars flights. However, since the US canceled the NERVA and thus its Mars plans in 1972, there was no pressure for Russia to produce and funding was rare. Still, a few were built and tested. After 12 years of testing the official proposal was put forth to develop the RD-0140, a 3.5 tonne version of Glushko's original design, as well as a 70 tonne RD-0411. Two years later there was no longer any Soviet Union. But Glushko's design survived even this, and in 1994 no less than 3 designs emerged from Kuchatov (one) and Keldysh (two) institutes, for Mars craft using 3 or 4 of the RD-0410, for a 460 day round trip.
There have been no Glushko motors built in over 20 years, but there could be. And obviously no Mars mission craft are being built. Designs and plans that persist for 50 years are rare in space exploration. There's little evidence to say whether yet another redesign by Ruskosmos is just another flag waving ritual by a home team that refuses to give up, or whether Glushko's creations have taken on a life of their own, and are simply successes waiting for their time. In any case, present 'development' is restricted to speculative design/redesign, yet more pictures on paper, hoping to become proposals.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
Hogwash. The US may has been dicking around, but others haven't. Your comment typifies everything wrong with the typical US attitude to space exploration.
The Russians were in space almost continuously from 1971 onwards--from Salyut, through to Mir and then the ISS--running manned missions and supply flights almost continuously until the present. The only pause in the Russian program was a couple years between the time Mir came down and the first ISS module was put up (again, the Russians).
From 1971-present the US couldn't put a man in space for years over several periods: after Skylab; after Challenger; after Columbia. Meanwhile, the Russians continued to grind along, slowly but surely, providing both manned and unmanned supply flights. Those Progress and Soyuz flights that helped keep the ISS alive? Those were from Russia, using proficiences they developed during the 20+ years *regularly* servicing Salyut and Mir and maintaining a manned presence in space.
Check the total time in orbit for the Salyut and Mir, days inhabited, and the number of missions--it's pretty damned impressive. And that was long before the ISS or the Shuttle.
They weren't "dicking around". They were doing serious science on long-term manned missions, and what it takes to sustain an effort, especially from an operational/practical perspective. It's no accident that a lot of the practical ISS LS systems are based on what the Russians learned and developed. NASA has refined some of those systems, but a lot of the basic tech (air revitalization, toilets, etc.) came from the Russian program.
This isn't a "race", at least if you're interested in more than flags and boots. It's learning. It's exploration not just of places, but of systems. It's engineering. It's figuring out how to make people and machinery work in environments that are hostile and for which many effects are little understood. You do that by trying, correcting, and trying again. That takes time and a sustained effort.