From: matus (matus@matus1976.com)
Date: Sun Sep 07 2003 - 15:33:04 MDT
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Technotranscendence
>
>Certainly much higher *specific* thrust. As for
>peak thrust, the good old kerosine-lox engine is
>hard to beat. I know of nothing nuclear on the
>drawing board currently that would challenge it for
>vertical launch.
I believe Zubrins Nuclear Salt Water Rocket would be a good contender.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=robert+zubrin+nuc
lear+salt+water+rocket
"Calculations show that this rocket would have both very high thrust and
a very high specific impulse"
R. Zubrin, "Nuclear Salt Water Rockets: High Thrust at 10,000 sec ISP",
Journal of the British Interplanetary Society 44, 371-376 (1991)
>it suffers from the comment you made about getting
>around the no-nukes crowd.
Same problem with the NSWR
>
Zubrin's relatively simple STS-derived booster
>looks like a hell of a good idea: use the
>existing SSMEs, solids and external tank with
>a sort of shuttle-minus-the-wings-and-wheels
>concept. We already have the infrastructure
>to make a lotta that stuff, plus the launch
>facility. We could hoist a lot of stuff with
>something like that, as well as placing the
>external tank in a high enough orbit to park
>it for a while, then use it for something up
>there.
>
>spike
I had not heard of this idea, yet another excellent one from Zubrin.
Michael Dickey
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