What is happening in the world of nuclear rocketry? We don't seem to be hearing as much as we used to. That is something that I have been noticing lately about a lot of things. Do you notice that we don't really hear much about the war in Iraq and even less about Afghanistan. You have to dig to find out how many soldiers are being killed. Ufos are not spoken about much anymore, I don't even have enough material to do an update, this month, on them yet. NASA is not in the news very much anymore and their program of nuclear rocketry is not being talked about as much as it used to be. It is almost as if a cloak of silence has been put over many different aspects of government. I included ufos in this because who would know the most about them, it would be the government no doubt.

Photo Source: NASA
Nuclear Engine Being Transported

One nuclear device that NASA is working on is a nuclear engine that would spit out tiny nuclear bombs that would detonate behind a spaceship at a specified distance and the blast would push the ship along. The ship would have a reinforced rear section that would be able to endure such forces. Besides the pollution of space, this would seem to be a terrible idea for space travel. It is the 21 century equivalent of being shot out of a cannon. If one were to take this same device and aim it at an enemy on a battlefield might it make a formidable nuclear weapon? Think about it, Tiny tactical nuclear blasts directed far enough from you, that you don't have to worry about the effects. You would be able to fire many of these tiny bombs in many different locations. This might be used to break the back of an overwhelming force that was attacking you. Instead of cannons you would be using nuclear bombs. Is it just my imagination or would this be a formidable weapon?

In 2003 NASA was given a budget that included a major nuclear system initiative. It was said to be for development of nuclear power that would allow humans to travel to distant planets. It certainly is true that NASA needs to develop engines that will allow them to travel faster. The problem is that they need to travel MUCH faster. Even nuclear engines will only keep us going in our own solar system. What is needed is an engine and a ship that can travel many times the speed of light, but according to Einstein's calculations, this is not possible. He stated that the barrier that can not be broken is the speed of light itself. According to Einstein, the faster we go, the more fuel we need and to travel at the speed of light we would need more fuel than is available in the entire universe. Wow! That is a lot of fuel.

NASA wants to use a nuclear engine to power one stage of a rocket that would carry humans to Mars. They claim that the reason they need it, is that it has a high specific impulse capability and the thrust to weight ratio is much better than a standard rocket motor. They also claim that they would be left with much more fuel for other maneuvers if required. While all of this is true, no one has mentioned the fact that we could pollute a portion of Mars if there is an accident. Of course if you mention this you will be told that they would build the reactor in such a way that it would be crash proof. One of the fuels being considered is uranium carbide My question would be, what happens if a micro meteor punches a tiny hole in the reactor? Would it leak all over Mars? There are forces in space that are much more dangerous than in the ocean where nuclear ships ply the seas. This makes using nuclear energy in space a lot more risky. What would happen if the nuclear ship approaches Mars too fast and just crashes into the planet? Can anything be created to withstand such pressure?

How do we know that we haven't already used some type of nuclear power for secret rocket launches? We do know that some satellites have had reactors aboard. This has not made some of the American public happy campers. I can understand this, since there is always the chance that of a rocket exploding or crashing back to earth. Many years back there was a famous crash of a Soviet probe that had a nuclear reactor on board and crashed into the woods in Canada. It was said at the time that the reactor was able to withstand the reentry and was undamaged. Was this propaganda to protect relations between the old Soviet Union and Canada at the time? Could there be a spot somewhere in the uninhabited woods in Canada that is now radioactive? If it did contaminate an area in the woods, it was probably cleaned up.

This country along with others has lost nuclear weapons in the past. If you can lose a nuclear weapon how can you be relied upon to create perfectly safe nuclear rockets and probes that won't have accidents? We are all only human, although some of us may think otherwise. So far humans have been unable to create a perfect accident free system for something as complicated as a nuclear rocket. Look at the shuttle and what has happened to it over the years. Look at the amount of people that have been killed riding in it. I remember hearing one of the designers at the time it was created saying that it would be just like riding a plane into space and returning. It turned out to be anything but. If our nuclear rockets turn out to be even ten times safer than a shuttle, they will still be too dangerous, considering what is powering them.

In 1997 a lunar base was proposed. A scientist named Borowski proposed using liquid oxygen that would be mined from the moon and using it in combination with a nuclear rocket. The rocket was to be used as a shuttle. Supposedly this would enable easy mining and transportation of the materials back to earth. Apparently this suggestion was never acted upon. Would it have been if we weren't spending so much money on wars? Who know, maybe it would have. There are a lot of companies that would love to be able to get into a venture like this. The moon has plenty of untapped mineral wealth that could be worth many hundreds of billions of dollars. Would nuclear rockets make the venture more cost effective? There is no doubt of that, but think of all these nuclear rockets going back and forth and multiplying the chances of a nuclear accident.

This push for nuclear powered rockets is nothing new. It has been going on at NASA since the 1960s. NASA has plenty of experience thinking about nuclear rockets now they want to build them. Let's hope that if they do, they think about how not to pollute the environment with them and how to make them as safe as humanly possible.