Slashdot Mirror
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."
...and if we're not careful, we'll lose. That still has consequences even with the real cold war over.
I am a geek attorney, but not your geek attorney unless you've already retained me. This is not legal advice.
They've drawn up a design.. wooo.. any nuclear engineer can do that - plenty of amateurs too.
Building real hardware is the only way to develop launch technology. Tell me when they've gotten the funding to do some static firing.
How we know is more important than what we know.
We are looking for the nuclear wessels!
Nucular... It's pronounced Nucular!
but the chinese can.
What the US needs to get back into the space race is a good old fashioned nose tweaking.
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?
Last time I checked, the space race was over for all intents and purposes by the early 1970's, and the world's space agencies had spent the following four decades mostly dicking around half-heartedly.
Mind you, I think a renewed space race would be great. But there isn't one going on right now. There's not even a space special olympics at the moment.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
Wake me up when they've built a nuclear powered bus.
I would just like to point out that developing a spaceship (The title) is a lot different than designing a spaceship (TFA).
Call me when the headline is true.
or else!
The Soviets were a lot more willing to shove nuclear reactors in places we were politically unwilling/unable to. The Russians may even have some Soviet prototypes around. It would be the same barely-post-war era tech all their stuff was, and it would be really, really, REALLY dangerous to use, but the very well might have gotten beyond blueprints.
As a matter of fact, the Soviets had a large number of nuclear reactors on satellites satellites (actual nuclear fission reactors, not radioisotope generators):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RORSAT
http://www.astronautix.com/craft/usa.htm
A number of them broke down and crashed back down to Earth, including one which crashed into Canada in 1978 and spread a decent amount of radioactive debris. Their nuclear-powered RORSAT series unfortunately also "had the lowest reliability and most quality problems of any Soviet space system."
But who cares about Canada anyway.
Eh! Canada's not a joke!
Fixed that for you.
"There are no facts, only interpretations." --Friedrich Nietzsche.
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
I certainly trust Soviet trained engineers to launch this thing successfully without air-bursting right after take off, scattering radioactive debris throughout the atmosphere. The Russians have a long, celebrated, history of safety and caution when it comes to their nuclear and aerospace endeavors--together they'll be a winning combination!
(and for those who think I'm being too harsh on the Russians, I wouldn't trust NASA to launch a nuclear powered spacecraft either)
NASA and Russia have already launched "nuclear powered spacecraft", typically using a Radioisotope thermoelectric generator. Its needed if you are gonna send a satellite where the sun don't shine. Take Cassini, or the Voyager probes for instance. The difference as I understand it is they would use the electricity to power a high specific impulse low thrust engine, such as an ion thruster.
NASA designed one, called NERVA, it was built and tested, out in Idaho IIRC, and was canceled by the Nixon administration. The photo in the article looks very much like a nuclear thermal engine, and nothing like a pulse system.
Compared to current tech, how fast and how far could such a ship theoretically travel?
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"
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. Oh and get off my lawn!
Fixed that for you. You know where you're from, but remember where you are posting also.
There, fixed that for you.
Do not meddle in the affairs of geeks for they are subtle and quick to anger
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