Nuclear Thermal Rockets in Sci-Fi Spacecraft

#TheSojourn Season Two, Volume One - OUT NOW!

Spacedock delves into nuclear thermal rockets in sci-fi spacecraft design.

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Battlezone II Music by Carey Chico

Spacedock does not hold ownership of the copyrighted materiel (Footage, Stills etc) taken from the various works of fiction covered in this series, and uses them within the boundaries of Fair Use for the purpose of Analysis, Discussion and Review.

[Spacedock]

#TheSojourn Season Two, Volume One - OUT NOW!

[Croz]

I have a feeling "decommissioning" is probably going to involve dumping the whole reactor and engine assembly in a graveyard orbit and forgetting about it.

[ashero]

All my hundreds of hours playing Terra Invicta and staring at Drive charts paid off, because I've recognized every drive/fission type reactor.

[jimmymcgoochie]

Worth mentioning: liquid hydrogen also has the twin benefits of being a) really cold (to cool the really hot rocket engine) and b) a nuclear moderator to boost the reaction rate in the reactor. More hydrogen flow = more reaction and also more cooling, which balances out to make it nice and throttleable with almost no changes to the reactor settings so more hydrogen in = more thrust out.

[knickohr]

I just love how many KSP clips there are in this video

[CTXSLPR]

Not a neutron moderator prison, it's a neutron poison or absorber prison. A moderator would just make things worse as it would push your neutron temperature down and make fission more likely.

[dariorthan]

Jeb has survived extra-vehicular reentry
do you really think he gives a shit about such lowly things as nuclear exhaust?

[gorzonthechampion]

Please make a video covering the Honorverse.

[weiwenng]

"Nonstop Chernobyl. Weapons-grade uranium." - Scott on the NSWR.

[jacobbronsky]

Play Rings of Saturn people. It's basically Nuclear Thermal Propulsion: the game.

[matthewconnor]

NSWR is my favorite idea for a nuclear rocket and seems like the perfect concept for a deep space vehicle.

[Inglonias]

There's a plan to fly one of these pretty soon! It's a mission called DRACO: Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations

[Attaxalotl]

I'm so glad you mentioned the NSWR; it's the Casaba-Howitzer of engines!

[rfletch]

The nuke / salt water rocket sounds like the Queller drive from "Space 1999". So bad it's inventor had to go into hiding like a war criminal.

[TheWarmachine]

In Universal Century of Mobile Suit Gundam, the nuclear thermal rockets were fueled by Minovsky Fusion Reactor filled with Helium-3 that produced Minovsky Particles which disrupts communication and scrambled targeting systems.

[anonymouse...]

I will be stationed in a space warship one day mark my words

[realitypoet]

Another advantage of having a fission reactor onboard is you can use the high energy photons to recrystalize your dilithium!

[gxo]

my favourite real life nuclear method of space travel was the early plans to drop nuclear bombs under a craft with a massive lead shield to the craft would ''bounce'' up off the ground then ''bounce'' further up on top more and more small nuclear bombs detonated under it. its insane to think it was genuinely considered as a form of early ascension into orbit

[chid]

man I would so love a sojourn tabletop ship game.

[mahatmarandy]

I have always wondered if the additional weight of the reactor core and such shielding as you have offsets the advantage of not having to have an oxidant. I suppose there is some combination of elements where you would definitely get more than enough power to offset that, but from what I know of the NERVA test, I am under the impression they did not reach that point.

Another concern I have always had is that the NERVAs were always kept in an excited state, just barely shy of melting down. That’s not a huge problem when you’ve got just one engine, but if you’ve got three of them strapped together like in all of the early NERVA mars rocket designs, the neutrons escaping from each individuals stage are gonna hit the Coors from the other two stages because as you pointed out, there’s really only shielding on the front end, not on the sides. So I have always wondered if having clusters bundled together like that would automatically make them meltdown.

Which obviously is not the same as if nuclear reactor melts down on earth, I’m not nearly as dangerous, they are in space after all, but I still wonder.

On the bright side, though, getting rid of irradiated spent nuclear thermal engines is really not a problem. Just hook up a new fuel tank to them, and let them use whatever is left of their core to propel the dangerous engine off into interstellar space. Cake!