VASIMR

[ar81]

It is very real.
Those news are somehow old for me, for it was in the national press.
The lab is about 100 miles from here.

It is the candidate to send a vehicle to Mars.

 

[Disconnect]

I read about this, and i can say: F**** AWESOME!!!

It seems the REAL space age coming soon.
VASIMR, and scramjets, cheap space flight could be possible to low earth orbit, to Moon and beyond.

 

[Andy44]

Okay, a few things:

1. If you want to travel the solar system, you need to stop fretting and embrace nuclear power. VASIMR is real, and it will get us there, just show me the uranium.

2. Stop fretting about nuclear reactors in space. the US and USSR have already flown them. There are, in fact, old nuclear reactors still in orbit as you read this. Google it.

3. There is nothing inherently dangerous about launching a nuclear reactor and fuel as long as you design the equipment properly. As with RTGs, you have to make the fuel vessel strong enough to withstand almost any concievable launch vehicle failure. Since uranium, plutonium, and other reactants are just pieces of metal, this is pretty easy. It's not like an abort system for humans. A launch vehicle failure means a container with fuel inside splashing into the ocean, no "spread over a large area" stuff.

4. Go back and read number 1. And smile!

 

[Ghostrider]

I don't see what is the problem. Let's stop calling it "nuclear" or putting the word "nuclear" anywhere near it, and nobody will care. MRI used to be called NMRI (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Imaging) but people were scared by the nuke stuff, so they took the N out. Do you see anyone scared by MRI or suggesting we should move the equipment far from populated areas? No, because when you take the nucular stuff out of the equation, everything is rosy.
So, let's call them nuclear rockets "happy rainbow unicorn fairy fluffy bunny rockets".

 

[Andy44]

So, let's call them nuclear rockets "happy rainbow unicorn fairy fluffy bunny rockets".

LOL! And if you fly one, then cartoon baby birds will dress you each morning while singing for you.

 

[Artlav]

What about MDE drive?
Matter deconstruction energy drive, sums the process finely, without "nuclear" or "fission" in it.

Yes, i too think PR stuff is the major problem of having a usable nuclear power sources and propulsion.

 

[Andy44]

I'd like to go the other way. Make it sound as scary as possible, and fly it no matter what. Call it the Massive Life-Destroying Nuclear Radiation Generator.

But I like to make trouble.

Seriously, Mars in 39 days? How can one turn up their nose at that? And how fast to Saturn? Sign me up!

 

[ar81]

If I understand correctly, if VASIMR exceeds certain levels of energy, nuclear reactions could be produced with that very same energy to enhance the propulsion, right?

 

[Hielor]

So, let's call them nuclear rockets "happy rainbow unicorn fairy fluffy bunny rockets".

Just say that it's towed by a fleet of hyperphotonic swans under an enchantment.

 

[Nerull]

It's not... a RTG still has considerable amount of radioactive stuff in it and is equally as dangerous if something went wrong.

Meaning not very?

 

[RisingFury]

It seems the REAL space age coming soon.
VASIMR, and scramjets, cheap space flight could be possible to low earth orbit, to Moon and beyond.

Reality check: Take a look around. We can't even agree if we want a continuous presence in LEO, if we wanna build a Moon base or go to Mars. We can't even agree what launcher we wanna use to get off Earth.


It will be decades before VASIMR finds practical applications. You know when Ion engines were first created? 1950's. When was the first real application? Deep Space 1.


And stop downplaying the danger of nuclear reactors. You make it seem as if nothing will ever go wrong. We've already had at least 4 Russian nuclear reactor cores re-enter Earth's atmosphere, fail to reach safe orbit or just destroyed at launch vehicle failure.

Chernobyl released around 10 times more radioactivity then Hiroshima bomb and the danger was downplayed. The official number of people affected or killed by the incident stands at 4000. The real number is closer to 400 000.

 

[Ghostrider]

Reality check: Take a look around. We can't even agree if we want a continuous presence in LEO, if we wanna build a Moon base or go to Mars. We can't even agree what launcher we wanna use to get off Earth.

That's a management issue, not a technological one. I'm for having multiple choices, the more LVs we have, the better because it's cheaper to buy and/or adapt an existing successful launcher than reinvent the roman candle each time.

It will be decades before VASIMR finds practical applications. You know when Ion engines were first created? 1950's. When was the first real application? Deep Space 1.

Lack of motivation, again not a technological issue.

And stop downplaying the danger of nuclear reactors. You make it seem as if nothing will ever go wrong. We've already had at least 4 Russian nuclear reactor cores re-enter Earth's atmosphere, fail to reach safe orbit or just destroyed at launch vehicle failure.

Things inevitably go wrong, but the correct attitude is to make stuff safer, not give it up. Any action we take has an inherent risk of failure but inaction is not a good alternative to failure.

Chernobyl released around 10 times more radioactivity then Hiroshima bomb and the danger was downplayed. The official number of people affected or killed by the incident stands at 4000. The real number is closer to 400 000.

Nobody downplays them but the Chernobyl reactor was an old and dangerous design to begin with, it's like thinking all cars are Ford Pintos. And we either go nuke or we go broke, like it or not no technological society can exist without power and we'll be needing more power, not less.

 

[Andy44]

Reality check: Take a look around. We can't even agree if we want a continuous presence in LEO, if we wanna build a Moon base or go to Mars. We can't even agree what launcher we wanna use to get off Earth. It will be decades before VASIMR finds practical applications. You know when Ion engines were first created? 1950's. When was the first real application? Deep Space 1.

So what? SOmebody was slow then so we have to accept being slow now?

And stop downplaying the danger of nuclear reactors. You make it seem as if nothing will ever go wrong. We've already had at least 4 Russian nuclear reactor cores re-enter Earth's atmosphere, fail to reach safe orbit or just destroyed at launch vehicle failure.

All those accidents and the world hasn't ended. And Ghostrider is right. The correct attitude is to fix the problems and move on, not give up. Defeatism gets you nowhere.

Chernobyl released around 10 times more radioactivity then Hiroshima bomb and the danger was downplayed. The official number of people affected or killed by the incident stands at 4000. The real number is closer to 400 000.

All subject to argument, and all irrelevant, since reactors flown in space are not designed like Chernobyl.

Bottom line: Either you're serious about spaceflight and you go nuclear or you stay in LEO.

 

[pattersoncr]

[snip]
And stop downplaying the danger of nuclear reactors. You make it seem as if nothing will ever go wrong. We've already had at least 4 Russian nuclear reactor cores re-enter Earth's atmosphere, fail to reach safe orbit or just destroyed at launch vehicle failure.

And the number of people injured by them is what?

Chernobyl released around 10 times more radioactivity then Hiroshima bomb and the danger was downplayed. The official number of people affected or killed by the incident stands at 4000. The real number is closer to 400 000.

The official number is 60. The 4000 is the number of people who might, maybe, someday get thyroid cancer...perhaps.
Those numbers are from the WHO mind you.
That 4000 number is based on the linear-no-threshold assumption, which is known to be scientifically unsound. So the real number of cancer cases is well below that.

 

[Zatnikitelman]

If we find Uranium on the moon, then there's reason to go and set up a small refinery thing so we can power our space infrastructure without worrying about having to shoot it up through the Atmosphere. If not, then launch the ore into space and refine it there into this "dangerous" stuff people are so paranoid about.

 

[Disconnect]

Why do you arguing about Chernobyl? That was a dangerous, and cheap design, they skipped to build concrete reactor cap, just because without that it's cheaper.
At the disaster they shut down all security systems and they did big mistakes.
And btw that's a BIG reactor. Spacecraft don't need such big reactors.
And the most important is: the fission fuel isn't a big thing, just some kgramms, and it would fit in a little but strong container, what can survive even a big rocket explosion, and THEN after the spacecraft is on orbit THERE someone or something (robot) should open that container, and put the fuel into the reactor.

It can be 100% safe.

 

[RisingFury]

You all make it seem as if we can expect a trip to Mars tomorrow using VASIMR powered by a nuclear reactor.

I'm not saying we should give up. In fact, I think that nuclear power is just about the only thing that we can use to get to another planet or solar system.

All I'm saying is that you should stop downplaying the danger of nuclear material, which you obviously are:

It can be 100% safe.

You know, another quote like that was: "Oh, the Titanic is too big to sink."

If anything, our current technology has proved over and over again that nothing is 100% safe. People die in cars, trains, planes, ships and just cos they walk and trip over stairs. We've seen something go wrong with just about every type of device there is.

The official number is 60. The 4000 is the number of people who might, maybe, someday get thyroid cancer...perhaps.

Have you seen the number of people that had to clean up after the Chernobyl disaster?

So what? SOmebody was slow then so we have to accept being slow now?

How many years did it take the first powered flight to take off? Space flight rockets have been under heavy development for 60 years and yet we're stuck with these inefficient ones.
Why do you think that VASIMR will just be used right away?

 

[Artlav]

Chernobyl released around 10 times more radioactivity then Hiroshima bomb and the danger was downplayed. The official number of people affected or killed by the incident stands at 4000. The real number is closer to 400 000.

Check your numbers.
134 people got serious radiation sickness, 28 people died for reasons in any way traceable to the incident.
The popular 400000-600000 number is people in some way affected by the incident - including the inhabitants of several towns that was relocated.
Of them, about 1% - 4000 - got typhoid cancer, and 9 (0.002%) died from it.
Can't find the figures about radiation release.

It was a disaster not much worse than a common plane crash, only with a lot of clueless panic added to it.
It's been over 20 years - the chernobyl zone is one of the largest wildlife preserves now, teeming with normal plants and animals, some of which was recently considered extinct.

Bottom line - anything powerful is dangerous. Anything dangerous treated with respect is safe.

 

[Sky Captain]

Why would launching nuclear reactors into orbit be so dangerous? A "fresh" nuclear fuel is only weakly radioactive. It`s the spent fuel that`s highly radioactive and dangerous if mishandled - no one is talking about putting that on a rocket.

Let`s consider the worst possible scenario - a heavy lift rocket carrying a nuclear fuel for Vasimir deep space vessel goes of course, for some reason fails to self destruct and hits a city. Perhaps several thousand people will die, but I bet all the fatalities would be from explosion and fires and no one would die from radiation. Most likely canisters containing nuclear fuel would survive the crash intact because they would be designed with a launch vehicle failure in mind.

 

[RisingFury]

It's highly unlikely that the nuclear fuel would produce a nuclear detonation... the fear is that it gets spread through a large area and contaminates food and water sources. Ingesting radioactive material is far more dangerous then just being exposed to radiation. A lot of the radioactivity is Alpha and Beta particles, which are stopped by clothing. Once inside your body, they cause cancer all over the place.



Besides, you're not really trying to justify the loss of life for space exploration, are you? Even if you feel that loss of life is necessary for space exploration, I don't think you felt the same way if someone close to you lost it.