Atomraketen könnten in der Hälfte der Zeit zum Mars fliegen – aber die Reaktoren zu konzipieren, die sie antreiben würden, ist nicht einfach
https://theconversation.com/nuclear-rockets-could-travel-to-mars-in-half-the-time-but-designing-the-reactors-that-would-power-them-isnt-easy-236463
6 Comments
It’s mind blowing that we’ve had this insane technology for decades but refuse to use it
This same technology was discussed by Carl Sagan in Cosmos.
Somebody do a quick tldr how the nuke engine tech works?
> isn’t easy
Is it because of a lack of modeling software? We’ve done this before (NERVA) we’ve just never flown it which is presumably the “easy” part.
Development of this technology is long overdue. We could have landed people on Mars with this technology if we had developed it.
“these rockets must carry oxygen with them into space, which can weigh them down” is a very dumb passage. Oxygen is also a part of reaction mass, it is no different to the “fuel” in this regard. It’s just chemical rockets usually use two components for reaction mass (it could be one and could be even three) and get energy from combustion, and nuclear thermal rockets use one component and get energy from the reactor, and the latter happens to be more efficient per unit of fuel mass.