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NASA Looking At Nuclear Thermal Rockets To Explore the Solar System
MarkWhittington writes: Officially, NASA has been charged with sending astronauts to Mars sometime in the 2030s. Toward that end, according to a story in Universe Today, space agency engineers at the Marshall Space Flight Center are looking at an old concept for interplanetary travel, nuclear thermal engines. "...according to the report (cached), an NTP rocket could generate 200 kWt of power using a single kilogram of uranium for a period of 13 years – which works out of to a fuel efficiency rating of about 45 grams per 1000 MW-hr. In addition, a nuclear-powered engine could also provide superior thrust relative to the amount of propellant used." However, some doubts have been expressed whether NASA will be granted the budget to develop such engines.
If only someone had been launching small quantities of radioisotopes into space for many decades and perfected the containment vessels... Oh wait, they have. They're called RTGs and they're absolutely designed to survive the rocket exploding on launch pad or free-fall from space after a failed launch. There has never been an incident where an RTG has leaked radioactive material into the environment. Not that it would matter - the amount we're talking about here is equal to the amount of uranium released into the environment by a coal-fired power plant every two hours in normal operation.