06-03-2020, 05:14 PM | #11 | |
Join Date: Jul 2008
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Re: TL7 Spaceship Design
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Unless you mean in the event of a crash or explosion.
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06-03-2020, 06:33 PM | #12 | |
Join Date: Mar 2013
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Re: TL7 Spaceship Design
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With all the more advanced technology we have today we might be able to get a custom built aircraft off the ground under nuclear power with spraying radiation everywhere, but I wouldn't bet on it carrying any cargo. |
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06-03-2020, 06:42 PM | #13 | |
Join Date: May 2010
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Re: TL7 Spaceship Design
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Wasn't radioactive exhaust one of the considerations that killed Project Pluto? Ofc if you're building an SSTO design you might make some compromises to avoid that problem. |
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06-03-2020, 07:20 PM | #14 | |
Join Date: Aug 2007
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Re: TL7 Spaceship Design
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There was absolutely no lack of funding or political support for manned spaceflight in our world at TL7 (on the US side at least). Werner von Braun did not go to Congress and beg for funding. Congressmen came to him just to check if he needed any. NERVA didn't spew radiation very broadly. They even blew one up while it was running just to see how big a mess it made and the answer was apparently "not that bad" at least by the standards of the time. Fission makes sut enogu neutrons to ssutainitself. Good designs minimize their loss to the environment. Then there's hydrogen. Using LH2 for an upper stage that only burns in near vacuum is relatively hard at TL7. Doing it for a first stage is TL8. Doing it for your SSTO spceplane is bouble hard because it will not be able to land with enough fuel to return to orbit. It would have to process its' fuel at its' landing site. Even liqud H2 can't be stored for truly long periods of time. It all leaks away. I've done designs for a vertol lander with a somewhat useful cargo capacity at TL9 but it used HEDM and carried a fission reactor and a fuel processing module.
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Fred Brackin |
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06-03-2020, 07:28 PM | #15 | |
Join Date: Jul 2008
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Re: TL7 Spaceship Design
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Pluto wasn't a space rocket, isn't even properly a rocket at all. It's a nuclear ramjet cruise missile/unmanned strategic bomber. It does seem like the NERVA prototypes had some core erosion problems that probably would result in some radioactives getting the fuel stream though, so that's not nothing.
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06-03-2020, 07:39 PM | #16 |
Join Date: Aug 2007
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Re: TL7 Spaceship Design
It's uranium and fission by-products though. It's not neutrons spewing everywhere. Pluto was probably also designed around a juiced up reactor using weapons grade fuel.
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Fred Brackin |
06-03-2020, 07:41 PM | #17 | |
Join Date: Jul 2008
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Re: TL7 Spaceship Design
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The usual worry with regard to radioactive exhaust is fissionables, fission products, and radioactivated materials from inside the core being blown out along with the intended reaction mass.
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06-03-2020, 07:45 PM | #18 |
Join Date: Jul 2008
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Re: TL7 Spaceship Design
Uranium and fission byproducts is way worse pollution than some free-range neutrons, isn't it? Radioactive heavy elements stick around. Unshielded neutron flux will kill you if you stand in it. But it doesn't leave a lot of residue from a rocket launch to worry about. (Well, so long as you don't drop parts of the rocket that were heavily irradiated following core ignition back into the atmosphere.)
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06-03-2020, 07:55 PM | #19 | |||||
Join Date: Mar 2013
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Re: TL7 Spaceship Design
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06-03-2020, 08:12 PM | #20 |
Join Date: Jul 2008
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Re: TL7 Spaceship Design
All NERVA tests were done on the ground, though, so what difference are you pointing to here?
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