There is a discussion on Hacker News, but feel free to comment here as well.

2 points

This is the best summary I could come up with:


Traditional chemical propulsion is great for blasting rockets off the surface of the Earth, but such machines are terribly inefficient for moving around the Solar System.

The basic idea is straightforward: A nuclear reactor rapidly heats up a propellant, probably liquid hydrogen, and then this gas expands and is passed out a nozzle, creating thrust.

Finally, in 2020, the curious folks at the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency said they wanted to test a flyable nuclear thermal propulsion system.

On Wednesday, NASA and DARPA announced they had selected Lockheed Martin to serve as the primary contractor to assemble the experimental nuclear thermal reactor vehicle (X-NTRV) and its engine.

This final orbit has yet to be determined, but it is likely to be 700 to 2,000 km above the surface of the Earth, such that the vehicle’s reentry into the planet’s atmosphere will take place hundreds of years after any nuclear reactions occur.

Dodson said this mission would attempt to store liquid hydrogen in its ultra-cold state for a couple of months, allowing enough time for multiple tests of the nuclear thermal engine.


I’m a bot and I’m open source!

permalink
report
reply
2 points

Thank god for this bot. Way too many articles get posted here filled with so much useless info that you have to skim through to get to the actual news part. Like I’m sorry journalist but no idgaf about what the fuck you ate today get the fuck on with the article.

permalink
report
parent
reply

Hacker News

!hackernews@derp.foo

Create post

This community serves to share top posts on Hacker News with the wider fediverse.

Rules
  1. Keep it legal
  2. Keep it civil and SFW
  3. Keep it safe for members of marginalised groups

Community stats

  • 1

    Monthly active users

  • 21K

    Posts

  • 11K

    Comments

Community moderators