Four years from now, if all goes well, a nuclear-powered rocket engine will launch into space for the first time. The rocket itself will be conventional, but the payload boosted into orbit will be a different matter.
KSP is finally starting to become reality! For those who haven’t played, there is an equivalent engine in the game called the “Nerv” which functions on the same principle, and is an incredibly useful engine. It’s cool to see this idea finally be developed into a real system
It’s incredibly useful in the game because it runs on the same liquid fuel that jet engines and rockets use (rockets also need oxidiser). It wouldn’t be as useful without that crossover.
Edit: I just realised that’s pretty much what’s happening here. The nuclear rocket uses hydrogen, and while it isn’t the most common rocket fuel these days hydrogen + oxidiser would be a functional rocket fuel. You could even run jets off it.
KSP also uses hydrogen fuel cells, which I think use liquid fuel to generate power. So it’s all pretty close.
So excited to see nuclear thermal propulsion actually flying. We were so close with project NERVA back in the 70s
Sounds risky AF
- If the rocket explodes, nuclear fuel could fall back to earth
- If not de-orbited properly, the nuclear fuel could end up scattered across a country - This already happened… multiple times… in 1973 1977, 1983
- If something goes wrong in orbit, now we have radioactive space junk… numerous accidents have already happened many times
The biggest hazard is launching the payload, if it fails it falls out over a large area causing contamination of the nuclear fuel. The high orbit of the test vehicle lowers the risks for the other outcomes you identified, and they are planned to remain in these so called “disposal orbits” for many hundreds of years. Things can get very very far apart in space. The Russian recon satellites were operated in low earth orbit and their failures were well documented and even attempted to mitigate by the soviets, though they did fail with very bad consequences at least three times.
As with any technological advancement , there are risks, but if humanity is ever intending to become a spacefairing species, we will have to make peace with nuclear energy. It’s the only technology that comes anywhere close to making interplanetary travel feasible at large scale.
I’m really excited for the potential for truly massive deep space probes, even though my favorite propulsion system is solar-thermal
Definitely a mission to keep an eye on, but when Orion drive?
