The Real Reason NASA Is Developing A Nuclear Rocket Engine!
Compare news coverage. Spot media bias. Avoid algorithms. Be well informed. Download the free Ground News app at ground.news/spacerace
The Real Reason NASA Is Developing A Nuclear Rocket Engine!
Last Video: Artificial Intelligence Is Landing On Our Moon!
• Artificial Intelligenc...
► Join Our Discord Server: / discord
► Patreon: / theteslaspace
► Subscribe to our other channel, The Space Race: / theteslaspace
Mars Colonization News and Updates
• Mars Colonization News...
SpaceX News and Updates: • SpaceX News and Updates
The Space Race is dedicated to the exploration of outer space and humans' mission to explore the universe. We’ll provide news and updates from everything in space, including the SpaceX and NASA mission to colonize Mars and the Moon. We’ll focus on news and updates from SpaceX, NASA, Starlink, Blue Origin, The James Webb Space Telescope and more. If you’re interested in space exploration, Mars colonization, and everything to do with space travel and the space race... you’ve come to the right channel! We love space and hope to inspire others to learn more!
► Subscribe to The Tesla Space newsletter: www.theteslaspace.com
Business Email: derek@ellify.com
#Spacex #Space #Mars
Compare news coverage. Spot media bias. Avoid algorithms. Be well informed. Download the free Ground News app at ground.news/spacerace
Kalki Ironman type 7 and 8 after 2026 😎 kalki avatar (beast of the earth) (christ on the white horse) (son of man on clouds) is the biggest enemy of dajjal/antichrist/kali 😏 Kalki Avatar 11th satguru 13th imam cousin of Moula mahdhi a.s. 12th imam (muhammad) 😎 Prophet Moula mahdhi is raja shashidhuvj (the mighty one) born less then 1200 years ago 😎 Prophet Moula Isa a.s. will kill dajjal cause dajjal is going to kill Kalki Avatar 😏 Kalki Avatar will follow orders from 2 religious king Moula mahdhi a.s. and Moula Isa a.s. 😎 Kalki Avatar going to have 2 swords and ring of moula sulaiman a.s. and staff of moula musa a.s. (iron rod) Staff of moula musa a.s. is like omintrix can transform into anything and can transform others into anything And stone in the ring of moula sulaiman a.s. is also known as kastav mani and it's more powerful than all 6 infinite stones combined 😇 Cuz Kalki is ironman batman super saiya-jin superman ben10 saitama optimus prime shaktimaan and every super heroes combined after 2026 😎 This staff will transforms into white horses with wings,weapons,iron-man,cloud etc or can do imagination into reality 😎 *Ratn sru sword of lord shiva (miri)😇 *Ratn varu (zulfakar) sword of Moula Ali (piri) 😇 miri piri 😇 Kalki Ironman after 2026 😎 Satyug (sunrise from West) 2038 😏 Sambal is hospital 😏 Gzwa e hind 2029 😎 Khalistan and Azad Kashmir after 2026 by Ironman 😎 99% Hadith u heard is not about imam Mahdi it’s about Kalki avatar (the main character) that person momin vs dajjal prove me wrong if u can 😏😏
Hi, were did you get the 3 to 5 factor? I have never seen a nuclear thermal rocker doing 3 times better in terms of specific impulse, and taking into account the extra weight of the hardware 3 times is a stretch. I agree with the development but we should be more critical of false promises. China is going to do it first by the way, if they don't mind dropping monomethylhydrazine stages on thier population, nothing is going to slow them.
Von Braun was literally one of the most famous Nazi scientists during his lifetime. There’s a Tom Lehrer song from the 60s about How he was a Nazi.
@@jaimeduncan6167 😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊 1:15
Apologies for being that guy but there was a mistake in the narration. You said free electrons were used to bombard and split the atoms, but it is neutrons. It even said so in the text of the picture you used at the time. But overall great video.
What kills me is that we had this technology for more than half a century.
Yes, but NASA had no need to deploy it. NASA was already beating the Russkies to the moon, and there was no one else to beat. Not until Elon came along and proposed his own Mars mission. At that point NASA starts dusting off that old technology left over from the 1960s to beat Elon. Simple !
@@SeattlePioneer Yes. Simple short sightedness. It is like painfully struggling to reach a cave of untold knowledge and riches then standing at the threshold and saying: "Meh." and turning around and going back.
@@dfgggg89 I give Werner Von Braun a lot of credit! He not only leverage Adolph Hitler to allow him to carry out his purposes, but Lyndon Johnson, John Kennedy and Eisenhower as well! And he not only had the imagination to create astounding rocket machines in his brain, but the engineering and leadership ability (and political skills) to turn them into working reality. AND, he managed to avoid being locked up after a Nuremburg trial, and go on to signal honors given by the nation that defeated his native country. That's quite remarkable, even if his creations didn't take a man to Mars. YET.
Yes but not the means. The theory was available but things like super alloys and high tech mosfets for example were not developed.
Lack of urgency in promoting human capability. Being shackled to the limits of our planet is narrow minded. As soon as humans start exploring other worlds they will wonder why we didn’t do this sooner. It’s all out there waiting to be discovered.
9:20 The nuclei are bombarded by "Neutrons", not "Electrons". It is shown correctly in the video but narrated incorrectly.
Thanks for clearing that up. The video had me confused there for a second.
He repeats that "electron bombardment", it sounds very bad
Yeah, once could be just a slip .. but trough entire explanation of nuclear fission? Trustworthy ..
That it can be achieved with electrons was a secret he wasn't supposed to tell.
Thank you. I lack the technical expertise to have caught that.
Narrator- "Liquid Rocket Engines are fairly simple in their design" Me, and other fellow students who are studying propulsion- "Uh hold up... When did that happen?!"
😄They are simple in working principle. There is a difference. And starting up a FULL bridge rectifier flow engine is anything but simple.
@@mennovanlavieren3885 Well, obviously the working principle of rockets (your traditional solid or liquid here) in itself is easy. Just like a lot of things around you. Just like how the basic principle of a musical instrument is to make sound. But in actuality, it takes months, if not years to master the art of playing an instrument. My comment was meant to be lighthearted, for a quick laugh, coming from someone who did struggle in her propulsion class. Hope you did have a good chuckle or at least a dry laugh tho . At least for the sake of my claims of me having a good humour :)
It is very simple in the way he explained it. In related news tax law is also very simple. You make money and the government wants some of it, and that's tax law explained...
It is a simple concept, that doesn't mean it's simple to achieve it just means your exploiting simple forces to achieve it. Car engines are more complex mechanically speaking the thing that makes rockets difficult is the precision involved, the propellent itself and the need to design your equipment to be robust enough to survive the forces and energy. So yes making a rocket it super complex, but how a rocket works is pretty damn simple.
What, shove fuel and oxidizer in one end, burned gas comes out the other really, really fast. Mass moving fast has lots of energy, so there's the old Equal and Opposite Reaction thing the other way that makes the motor push really hard. Everything else is just minutia. Well, really complex, complicated and detailed minutia, anyway!!! Just razzin' on ya (=joke), I come from a different but equally complicated industry, I know exactly what you mean!
Growing up in the 60's and watching the "space race" was so exciting. We got to the moon....and then nothing. I for one am happy to see the world get excited about going into space...
did you get to moon thou?
@@meggi8048Yeah, he went on the Apollo 11.5 mission
"Then Nothing" is not actually accurate! FYI, Man has not been to the moon, never has and never will because man is not able to.
The iss, cassini, the shuttle, hubble, voyagers, skylab, mir, viking, veneera, etc... are nothing? Lol
is earth flat to ....muppet
How realistic would it be for Starship to get into orbit, and then have a nuclear frame waiting to take it to Mars? Figuring Nuclear being the best Space transport.
Probably the exact idea they will use.
I think I'm the future they will have craft that look like what we see in science fiction but because of the gravity well they will never land on a planet just move between them
im visioning musks starship lifting to orbit, connecting to draco engines and away we go
Not realistic at all. This is just another way for legacy space companies to continue to waste more of the American tax dollars. The legacy space companies have already wasted 50+ years and countless dollars to toss rockets into the ocean and stay in LEO. The only reason the Government is now doing anything is because the legacy money train going to those companies has all but dried up and no longer active and be meaningless once the Starship begins to fly thanks to SpaceX, These companies will overcharge, over spend and not deliver as they always have done. We can only hope they let SpaceX compete and help and build a better rocket that uses this tech that belongs to the tax payer NOT legacy companies that are only there to waste money and go nowhere and always need more more. This rocket will be 100x more expensive only to shave off a few weeks in space to deliver a tiny payload.
Musk seems to have no problem changing his designs at a second notice. I would guess he would incorporate this new technology into Starship as soon as he could.
So, it's basically the NERVA project from the 60's, shocked it took this long to start working on it again.
The word nuclear scares people and governments. Despite its use in submarines and aircraft carriers for decades
There is a difference between a nuclear engine and a nuclear reactor. The nerva can be build in a way that it exhausts radioactive Gas. In the 60's they feared this could escalate the nuclear arms race. Check Project pluto for example. Thats why it can fly so qickly now. The technology is basicaly complete.
@@juleswoodbury58Danish? Long Island?
@@frimi6023 that’s a proper cogent response. Thanks fella
Not really. NERVA used high enrichment fuel rods, so the exhaust was quite hot, and the mass requirements for shielding in the 1960's was prohibitive. DRACO is using low enrichment fuel and advanced materials to reduce the radiation produced as well as the structural mass required. If you google the docs, DRACO is also going to involve prototyping electrothermal ship power systems, as well as integrating nuclear powered ion engines, so it isn't just an engine; its an entire platform. This is a 3 stage program, and we are literally at the end of Stage 1. The thing I'm chuckling about is what isn't said. They predict DRACO will have a specific impulse of 2,000+, which is where they get the Earth-Mars transfer in 6 weeks. What hasn't been mentioned is that numbers like that could result in an Earth-Moon trip of around 8 hours. So about the time of a New York to London commercial flight. If SuperHeavy finally gets off the ground and proves operational, then all of the private space station start ups will swing into high gear, meaning that dockyards and actual flight concourses will be feasible.
It was written correctly, but I heard it twice. "Uranium atoms bombarded with free electrons splitting into two parts and releasing energy". Uranium atoms being bombarded by neutrons... Oops.
I would like to see Starship go to orbit under normal propulsion, then settle into a "framework", consisting of the nuclear engine(s), and fuel tanks. Once locked in, this setup could take them to Mars, or beyond, and still give them normal engines for landing, while saving fuel. Such a setup could be refueled from a tanker-style Starship, for repeated use. Use of a combined-cycle nuclear thermal engine, with the exhaust being hyper-accelerated through a Hall Effect thruster, might give the performance needed for long voyages, in a reasonable amount of time...
A bit like the hyperspace rings the Jedi used in star wars... 🤔 That would be sweet to see happen!
That way is wise,. So on starting up the nuclear mills ...in space would be a guaranteed cold start.
I think instead, or maybe similarly, the nuclear Draco engines can be used to build a much more massive ship, where the Starship can be docked and used as a shuttle to ferry to and from planet surface. This pretty much takes us back to large ocean vessels and a small boat to get to land.
" then settle into a "framework", consisting of the nuclear engine(s)" You were thinking of that ring with engines that Jedi Starships use in Star Wars weren't you? You carefully pilot it to the dock-in mechanism of the ring and the starship attaches to this ring of engines, then you can travel at hyper speed for far longer distances, or should I say, far faster than it can go on its own. XD
So what do they do once they land on a planet then can’t get back into orbit without the nuclear engine
This is the type of pure space research that NASA should be focused on. Then allow private companies to refine/optimize/commoditize it. Little to nothing of what SpaceX is doing is revolutionary from the aspect of rocket science fundamentals. From the aspect of manufacturing, absolutely.
I applaud NASA and DARPA for this initiative. I remember that Werner Von Braun had a launch date to send humans to Mars in 1982 via nuclear propulsion
Going to Mars for any worthwhile reason and purpose is as achievable as nuclear fusion, aka not gonna happen.
@@fs5866 Yeah, i agree. We should focus on the moon first what with it being a hell of a lot closer and all. The moon is the perfect jumping off point for our expansion into the solar system and hopefully beyond. If we can just get a simple base built we can start mining, not to send material back to earth yet, just so the base can expand without needing constant supply shipments. Eventually it'd grow into a lunar city, fully self sufficient doing science and manufacturing goods that can only be done/made in low gravity environments. And that's what'll make the whole endeavor worthwhile in the end.
Be careful what you wish for though. DARPA is Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Although I’m not opposed to them building a Donnager class Battleship…..As long as it’s ours 😂
@@fs5866 - "Going to Mars for any worthwhile reason and purpose is as achievable as nuclear fusion, aka not gonna happen." - Nasa had NERVA under developement for 17 years. And they had a functional engine. Getting to Mars using the NERVA was definitely possible by the early 1980s. Nixon cancelled the NERVA program in 1973. As for "going to Mars for any worthwhile reason and purpose"; the US exists today because the Puritans saw it as a chance to start again. And I live in Australia; we started as a dumping ground for the prisoners the British could no longer send to "the colonies" because of their revolution.
Yeah, but he was playing with monopoly money. Sure, the technology of the time could have done it, but it really wasn't suitable. It would have been kinda similar to what ocean gate was doing. That is, using things that could, but mostly shouldn't be used. Everything is vastly better now. Including our understanding of things. Like how to block radiation. Nevermind how much we've learned about metallurgy.
I feel positive about their time line. Surely the consept have been proven in the 60's so it will be a matter of implementing it to a test flight article.
He said "crewed missions to Mars" I heard "crude missions to Mars"
Political correctness gone mad!
Clean your ears.
Using hydrogen has a couple of downsides, which is why it is usually not used in current rockets. 1 it has to be stored colder, has a lower density thus needs more space, it is highly reactive and corrodes metal containers and is also highly flammable.
Presumably a noble gas might be better, or at least something which has more mass, higher density and is easier to store if you're not going to bother with a chemical reaction. Similar to the propellant for an ion engine.
@@theharper1 The NERVA engine only works because of the low mass of hydrogen. Ion engines do better with a higher mass atom, hence they prefer Xenon.
@mennovanlavieren3885 OK it's not clear why hydrogen should be the only suitable propellant. Unfortunately the Wikipedia article isn't enlightening. There's lots of reasons to avoid hydrogen.
Im no rocket scientist so bear with me with this simple question. Why not use water? What are the downsides?
@ChefManPS3 corrosion of components? Interesting question though.
The thing to consider on the timeline is that they aren't developing completely new technologies. They're taking existing ones and integrating them in a new way. As an integration project a five year timeline seems far more reasonable than, say, developing an entirely new engine using unproven theory. If anything delays this project it won't be the science. It may be the engineering (see the delays in the Blue Origin BE4 or Boeing Starliner) but it's most likely to be political and regulatory. With DARPA involved that will smooth a lot of political problems though which may well be _why_ they've gotten involved.
My guess as well.
you can't build anything with unproven theory.
There's a few points that are incorrect in the video FYI. Nuclear fission doesn't involve electrons, uranium atoms are bombarded with neutrons and when fission occurs more free neutrons are released which in turn split more atoms. Another is, Blue Origin don't use methane in their upper stage engines on New Glenn. The BE-4 is CH4/LOx but the BE-3U is LH2/LOx.
that mass of oxidiser will be replaced by the mass of housing the nuclear reactor, so we have to see if there is any resultant decrease. that decrease will result in the increased speed but if we increase the payload size or in anyway nullify the decrease then no point of nuclear reactor.
There's no question that a nuclear rocket engine would be a boon to space travel. Faster speeds, greater range, less consumables required for manned flight etc. etc. etc. ... However... Making a nuclear engine that works as advertised is the hard part. How heavy would a nuclear reaction engine be? How expensive is the Uranium and/or Plutonium required for the engine? How do you contain the constant 2700C degrees the engine operates at? How much thrust can such an engine produce, is it enough for launch or only for travel once orbit is achieved? All these questions have to be answered and engineering solutions have to be found, and yes, it IS rocket science and the rewards are there, but is it possible??? Time will tell.
Hi Christian, excellent questions! I am a Aerospace Engineering Senior Student and my thesis was a comparative analysis of nuclear and chemical propulsion. Most of your questions are already answered, since engines of the type of the video (Nuclear Thermal Rocket - NTR) already operated (for a long time, with a lot of restarts, and a good ISP, look into NERVA program). The weight and thrust are closely related, since what matters the most is the thrust to weight ratio, for nuclear engines is at max 20 (as far as I recall, may be it is a little more) so they are not suitable for launches, only for space use. The thrust, for nuclear thermal propulsion, is quite high (hundreds of thousands of newtons) since the power is also very high. Regarding the temperatures, the engines operated (during the sixties and seventies!) already reached up to 2200K nd worked for hours. Some different fuel configurations (like grahite coated peeble fuel) can reach even higher temperatures (up to 3000K). I recommend you to read about NERVA, project Timberwind so you can see more about the design, materials used, etc. The biggest point is price, since no production models were created (only flight test configurations and prototypes) so it is very hard to compare to chemical rockets, but it will be higher. In any case, the higher price is compensated by the excellent capabilities of the NTR. If you have any questions, feel free to ask! Sorry for the long answer
@@arthurdefreitaseprecht2648 First of all, don't apologise for long answers, if it's necessary so be it and excellent answers too! 😊 My question about the temperature the engines are required to work at was more about the fact (at least to my understanding) that this temperature would be constant for the whole time whether the engine is working or not. Or is there some way of bringing the temperature down between firings? Sorry if my questions are obvious to someone who has worked on a thesis, but I promise I'll look up NERVA project Timberwood after this one... 😄
@@chrisantoniou4366 thank you very much for the kind reply! So basically, while the engine is firing, yes, the temperature is high and constant, and the reactor is "on" (controlled by the control drums/control rods). When the firing ends, the propellant stops going through the core, but the reactor is turned "off" (by inserting the control rods/ turning the control drums), so no huge amount of heat is generated. The temperature of the core then is radiated away, and it cools to much lower temperatures (i am not sure, but it is some hundreds of K, due to decay heat, but in any case the temperature is low enough so it does not pose any risk to the integrity of the reactor). This subject is a little complex but fascinating, if you are interested I can give more recommendations about the NTRs, in any case NERVA and project Timberwind are an excellent start, since one was tested and the other was researched very thoroughly. Hope that I cleared some of your doubts! Have a nice day
The ability to design and test a nuclear engine was Preformed in the late 60's and early 70's, so hopefully they still have the technology. Basically the only thing DARPA needs to do is update the existing design and manufacture it for a interplanetary vessel. A nuclear engine could do two things. First it could get us to Mars in about 30 days and Jupiter in a few months. This should open up exploration to objects past the Moon like Starship (by Spacex) will hopefully do to getting large payloads into orbit. Secondly, the nuclear engine will provide enough thrust to maintain a 1g acceleration to provide artificial gravity. It is looking like we just might have a good chance of having a bright future in space! And I believe that this push for development is a direct result of China trying to do the same. Because the USSR was the main reason we landed on the Moon. Now with China trying to get the ability to out perform the USA, as a result we in the United States have taken the challenge and are in competition once again.
Sorry, but nuclear thermal rockets, though vastly better than chemical rockets, just cannot do continuous 1g acceleration. They are still very much short impulse systems, short being a relative term. A nuclear rocket might fire for an hour or two to accelerate to cruising speed and to decelerate on arrival. The rest of the time the spacecraft coasts.
@@MrRlnansel k. I wasn't sure if th 1g acceleration was possible, but I typed the comment before I actually researched it. Thanks, I stand corrected.
@@blythehaynes3765 1g acceleration can only be sustained for a few minutes due to the maximum speed of the exhaust gasses. Also the amount of energy required even using a fission reactor burning through the reaction fuel, why the 'Project Orion' nuclear spacecraft was designed to use a pusher plate with nuclear bombs pushing the Spacecraft.
The 2030's are going to get really awesome with space stuff.
I'd say it is pretty awesome right now. Space X, Blue Origin, Rocket Lab, NASA and that is just getting started!!
"When science is on the march, nothing can stand in its way!"
Awesome. I love this tech, surprised you didn't mention that we built one of these in the 60s to test, though never flew it and since then have been able to make them much lighter and safer. Also this is just the first step of this tech tree, the gas core NTRs can go about 5 times faster than these solid core ones.
Thanks babe! Love you x
Not electron. NEUTRONS are bombarding the nuclei. You said it twice around 9:30-9:45. Also, why not use water as the propellant. Superheat it to the point of stripping the electrons from the nuclei and then shove it through a nozzle the drops the pressure and ignites the hydrogen and oxygen adding additional thrust. Safer to store, safer in operation and uses a multipurpose (i.e., essential) liquid as it's foundation.
High temperature water is corrosive. It splits into monatomic oxygen and hydrogen when exposed to radiation. Hydrogen gives better specific energy if thermally heated and ion drives work better with xenon or krypton (more mass equals more thrust in ion drives and krypton is inert). In short, nothing is as simple as you think.
@@allangibson8494 Not simple, but I do believe that those objections can be engineered around. We have done so many times with "impossible" drives. It may not be a good idea, but has anyone actually tested it to see?
Water would give lower Specific Impulse (a measure of fuel efficiency for rockets). For solid core nuclear thermal rockets it probably does make sense to use LH2 as propellant, even given all the hassles of storing it and how large the tanks must be for LH2. For higher performance nuclear rockets (gaseous fission reactors), the performance tradeoff between LH2 and H2O is still pretty big. A solid-core nuclear rocket might give a specific impulse of maybe 1000 sec, more than twice as good as the best chemical rockets using LH2 and LOX, but gaseous core systems might have specific impulse in the range of 10,000 sec using LH2. Using water instead with such an engine the specific impulse might drop to, say, 2000 sec. This would still be a FABULOUS rocket. For one thing, the propellant tank would be smaller than the cargo hold. That is the way a good spaceship should be.
Any of you brilliant people know what material they use to contain 5000+ temps?
@@lii1Il Nuclear thermal rockets don’t run that hot. Ion drives use use the same containment techniques as fusion reactors - magnetic and electric fields with the plasma never contacting the walls of the accelerator. Ion drives can’t generate the same thrust as the thermal rockets but use less reaction mass because of the much higher exhaust velocity. Ion drives can’t lift a spacecraft to orbit but are far more efficient once in vacuum.
Since a working nuclear engine has existed since the 60s, it will be interesting to see how they solve the fuel supply issue. The video i seen on the subject indicated the fuel volume required was quite large and we still have no infrastructure in orbit to supply such.
This is the first source I've come across that's mentioned an actual propulsion method. That's what I was most confused about. The couple of article mentioning an engine didn't go in to depth. Technically fuel is just the first thing you burn to produce energy. That energy simply imparts a force on something else. We haven't actually applied any form of nuclear engine that would be fit for space. Only the uranium is technically fuel, and its very energy dense. The only way that I know of we've applied nuclear energy to produce motion is to use its heat to turn water to steam to turn a turbine. Water doesn't "fuel" the reaction though. I'm not really trying to be semantic, but I think there is supposed to be an important distinction between what is a fuel, and what is a propellant.
@@blkspade23 The uranium is the energy source (fuel). The hydrogen is the reaction mass. (Might call it propellant, Idk) I don't think being a little semantic is out of place in this context.
Or the water source for cooling
@@jahramika the water would not cool enough, they use the hydrogen in its liquid state to do that on the first pass through the reactor then they feed the hydrogen back through to pick up more heat and then discharged to provide thrust.
There’s a great documentary on KZhead about when the AEC built KIWI, a very impressive stationary nuclear thermal rocket engine sometime in the late 50s or early 60s, I don’t exactly remember the year. It produced a lot of power for a very long time
Neutrons not electrons!
Yes that is a very realistic plan, and keeping it cool in space is a lot easier. The hydrogen will have too be super heated too plasma then ignited. Using a exhaust inducer to recover part of it and start the cycle over.
8:19 Video says current liquid-fueled rockets pump the propellants into the combustion chamber where they are "exploded". But actually the liquid propellants are "combusted" (i.e. burned) in the combustion chamber. Exploding the propellants would quickly explode the entire rocket engine. Although, exploding is just burning very very very fast.
9:23 just a note, it's not free electrons, but free neutrons, amazing video btw it made me subscribe to the channel! keep up with the amazing work... also loved the comment on the name of one of the three companies 🤣
So what you're telling me is that we plan to go to space using steam engines
Correct! Old, but gold!
FYI, Hydrogen is the ideal Short Term rocket fuel. We currently have no way to contain it so it leaks free of all it's tanks. In use or not. So it quickly becomes a problem if you need to have it around for a long time. Nasa's best hydrogen storage tank looses 530 gal/day. The new ones reduce that by 45% but that's still a lot. At some point Adding more fuel to allow for losses makes the wight too high.
Interesting.
I was going to ask if water would be a better propellant. Easy handling, no special precautions need be taken & already used to get oxygen to the ISS so could also be used to supply any crewed vehicles. As there is no need to burn the propellant you just need mass to throw out the back. A final bonus is that water & fission is an understood technology.
@@chrissouthgate4554 It's all about tread offs. It's down sides are that water is pretty heavy. It also has the annoying habit of freezing (space is cold). So unless you have a lot of things going on in your mission while getting where your going your going to have to supply a lot of heat which is going to use a fair bit of power. The other problem is, How are you going to throw it? Not mechanically. Magnetically? No matter what system you pick to throw it, that system throws other things better. It's not like your idea is a bad one so much as there are other ideas that a slightly better.
I was going to say how hydrogen is extremely slippery gas and can finds it's way out of most things. Probably going to be even more of a problem in the vacuum of space so increasing losses further. I wish them all success but it's not going to be easy.
@@lucidmoses Steam moves pretty fast & you are heating it with a nuclear reactor; superheated steam would be even better. Yes, it weighs more which would a minus (though that would mean more compact tankage), but that becomes a plus when you pitch it out the back. (Mass x Velocity = Thrust)
I met an individual who graduated from college with an engineering degree and worked at White Sands New Mexico from the mid-50s all the way through 1972. He said that they developed a nuclear powered rocket motor that was ready for testing in space in 1972. He stated that the boss of White Sands went to the president at the end of the Apollo missions. He told the president that there's a need for a heavy lift vehicle. The space shuttle program was developed. Through his contacts at White Sands who were still working on the program, said that they got from Earth to Mars inside of 3 weeks. He also said that the other nuclear programs that were public knowledge were just a rouge.
Reminds me of the "Expanse" big time because from what I understand, the ship can continue to accelerate but at some point you do have to slow down.
This was the first time I was actually interested in chemistry
I agree it can be accomplished within 15 years given lots of careful testing
China will be ready in lest than 5 years. They did not care about hydrazine in towns, they will not care about careful testing. They answer to nobody.
The NERVA nuclear engine was successfully fully tested in the 1960s.
Crude vs crewed has always made me smile when people talk about missions
When I was in elementary school in the early 1960’s the US Atomic Energy Commission published a series of ~30 booklets each dealing with a different aspect of nuclear energy such as food irradiation (now commonplace), creating new elements via neutron bombardment, nuclear powered commercial ships, etc. One of the booklets dealt with power reactors to furnish electricity to spacecraft, satellites, and future space stations (SNAP Program). Another specifically addressed nuclear propulsion (NERVA; Project Rover) for spacecraft. The project ran from the mid 1950’s to 1973 and resulted in a propulsion reactor that was operational for several years in the late 1960. It looks like NASA is literally reinventing the nuclear wheel. Interestingly enough I held on to those booklets until they were destroyed by fire in 2017.
Or NERVA II but of course, you must have a new name for funding. But of course, they already have a good basis for this. NERVA was ready for launch in the early 70s but was killed off. It is very likely that research will be used for this program. I am also willing to bet that the US has been working on this for many years at a low pace. So yes it can be done.
I worked at Air Products and Chemicals and manufactured the liquid hydrogen for the NERVA program testing. The max time of thrusting was around 20 minutes and around 20,000 lbs of thrust. NASA had preliminary spacecraft layouts that could hold 18 people, but they would launch 3 ships with only 6 inside each ship. If any thing went wrong they could get in the remaining ships and continue the mission.
would spacex consider developing a nuclear rocket engine? if not, why not?
Hope they do for sure 🚀
They prolly already are. Prolly a fusion one.
No. Anti-LH2 due to issues with storage and transfer
It baffles me how out of touch with reality those Elon fanboys are 🤣 In order to be able to develop anything even remotely close to nuclear you have to got through thousands of approvals and be to some degree affiliated with the military or be a defense contractor. That's why so very few companies can do it. No, SpaceX fanboy, SpaceX is not developing any nuclear engine. Not even in a decade or two. Grow up and be bit more realistic.
@@fifski excerpt that Elon is working with the military (a contract of 100M), the Air Force, and the White House. Tell me you don’t know shit about Musk and reality without telling me. Oh jee you’re already told me. Why did you delete your comment? Be a man, own up to your derision, and apologize. You’d look better than deleting your comment.
The NERVA engine was real and ready to go to be used on a Saturn V Mk. II. Only problem was that both were cancelled in the early 1970s. Since NERVA is the blueprint for this future engine, and it was a successful ground-tested nuclear engine, a derivative design should be viable in under five years.
In fighter mode the VF-1's thermonuclear engines and the several vernier rockets on its fuselage make it capable of operating as an aerospace fighter.
If I were Von Brawn I would likely have done the same things he did, his eyes were in Space ALWAYS, as he said about the V2, the rocket worked perfectly it just landed on the wrong planet... (A cop out if I ever saw one...) Considering that his path enabled the development of crucial technologies and that otherwise we may be decades away from where we are today I have nothing to blame him for, he made the best he could of an impossible situation.
"The rocket worked perfectly it just landed on the wrong planet... (A cop out if I ever saw one...)" I dont think that was his decision.
@@Pharozos ...absolutely, he was just following orders
Ha last week I had a conversation and they were like what is one good thing that came from Hitler. I was like well without the nazis we would be about 50 years behind in rocketry and space exploration
@@scooble You should watch some documentaries about the guy. Its not as simple as nazi bad man with wernher von braun.
Wernher von Braun willingly used slave labor. If y'all are fine with that, godspeed!
The fastest trip to the Moon so far is 8.5 hours. We didn't stop there but crossed the orbit. At Apollo speeds, the Moon is about 12 hours away any time we choose to do it.
Why did it take the Apollo astronauts 72 hours to reach lunar orbit? Even accounting for initial activity in Earth orbit it's a lot longer than 12 hours.
It should be very feasible. In the Huntsville space museum there is a research test rocket called "Nerva" which worked exactly as you described. It was tested in Jackass Flats Nevada, and it worked very well as a rocket but it spewed very high levels of radiation into the environment. They abandoned further testing of the concept after the initial test ( like, what were they thinking ) If it was just fired up and tested in outer space; then perhaps adding a tiny bit more radiation into outer space may not pose a problem.
He name checked The Expanse at the end! That being said, they used a version of nuclear fusion - not fission - within their Epstein Drives - so sophisticated, it could flip and burn and land safely on a planet with all its nuclear core material. The holy grail as per the expanse would be to generate thrust to 0.3- 1 G acceleration. The Mars transit would only be a maximum of 6 days and of course, the thrust would allow for linear artificial gravity to prevent long term damage to human occupants. Oye, Beltalowda!!!
They could do it in 5 years, but there will surely be some delays, caused by political changes
the people who block space flight are right now in office, if the other dude gets back into office, its probably 3 years ;)
@meggi your cult leader can't even SPELL space!!
@@stevefisher2553 what do you mean?
lmao... you need a lession in reality. You sound like Elon Musk... this will only happen when and if it is profitable to do so, greed and money has been the bane of space exploration since the onset. Until the money factor is removed ( like thats going to happen) The exploration of space will be dollars .. not ability or tech design that happens to be built. At present we will only explore space when it makes money to do so, or money is available. The advancement of humanity went away long ago. Unless dollars are involved..This will be our downfall , just on the edge of development of something. And we shall fail in this , greed will limit our progress, because money is what enslaved humanity from its concept and use. Life and progress has value.. to put a dollar value on all else and life itself made us a slave to money. We are not going anywhere... space wise or advancement as a species.
This is very exciting to hear about. I'm all for it.
Great video. Will be returning for more
Hey! We built "THE BOMB" in what, 2 and a half...three years? We build nuclear subs and aircraft carriers on a regular basis. Yeah, we can build nuclear spacecraft. It's not a matter of capability. It's just a matter of having the will to do it. If you consider the alternative (remaining confined to the Earth which risks ultimate extinction from some "black swan"-type of event), I'd say the better option is to develop the damn thing and then get out there and explore and expand, before some asteroid, super volcano (insert massive disaster here) takes us out!🚀🌠
It's not that simple. Nuclear rockets are an engineering problem and have constraints that other uses for atomic power don't. The weight of the engine is an issue, as is the cost, the total thrust, and the shielding that would be required for humans. It isn't even certain that such an engine can be built at all, let alone have the performance envisaged to make it worthwhile.
@@chrisantoniou4366 those engines were already built ant tested up to the flight configuration, look into the NERVA program. The engines even outperformed the requirements, they were not used for a lack of application that required so much performance. It would not be hard to replicate them, the biggest problem is the cost. Not even the radiation is a big deal, since interplanetary space is VERY radioactive (from galactic cosmic rays and solar wind and flares), the faster travel times enabled by nuclear propulsion compensates the radiation dose due to the reactor.
The long-term cryogenic hydrogen storage problem is ... still a problem. That stuff really wants to boil off, which requires that you vent hydrogen. So you have to really insulate those tanks somehow. Which = extra mass. Or you have to figure out some low-mass way of keeping hydrogen cold. And if you use any other propellant, the performance hit is such that you might has well use a chemical rocket.
Use the moon’s water & solar panels to make the hydrogen there. It’s so cold on the moon, you could practically store it in buckets.🤣 The other problem is you need to get oxygen from somewhere in order for the hydrogen to burn.
When you produce hydrogen from water using electricity then you produce oxygen on other side Remenber: H2O
@@zeljkorubesa473 Oh yes, keep the oxygen in buckets too.
The answer is obvious..has been for many years..use Water....
The answer is obvious..has been for many years..use Water....
I am working my through a stack of nuclear history and nuclear books right now and I have a whole new view on nuclear power, it’s safety and use. I hope they go for this.
you don't need radioactive shielding because reactor could be mounted on a stucture far apart from crew compartment when rocket parts are assembled in space
hi
Give the job to SpaceX if you want 2027 to be possible. Give him the NERVA systems, as it was ready for space flight in the 1960's to start with.
The reactor would most likely survive the thermal impact of a rocket failure. But the mechanical loads are a different beast
The faster you go in space you go, the more energy is required to stop at your destination. Thats why the pluto flyby was so short. Get anyway up to even a decent fraction of LS and your gonna be needing to reverse thrust from about midway or you are going right past in a few mins.
You know this idea of nuclear power engines has been around for a long time. Project Rover was a United States project to develop a nuclear-thermal rocket that ran from 1955 to 1973 at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory.🚀🌌🪐
Whoo first comment!
I think nuclear FUSION is the key to our solar system … we haven’t cracked fusion power, but a fusion rocket engine is not the same thing and we could build one of those with the technology that we have now.
im a big fan of outer space exploration, i love star wars, alien and predator movie lover...i cant wait to see humans living on the moon and mars in my lifetime.
Now we’re getting somewhere. This is awesome! Build much bigger space vehicles on the moon or in space so you can do really useful stuff with them. Sounds like this nuclear engine is way overdue and if it lives up to expectations this is what we should have been doing long time ago. Can’t wait. And hope they can come up with even better designs in the future.
I think we will develop technology to get us around the culdesac of the solar system but we not leaving, it takes to much energy. I think we will see something similar to going to the don't south pole but with Pluto and then the kiper belt
An 8-month trip to Mars is totally out of the question there's too many things that could go wrong the astronauts will never make it back alive.
Hydrogen is notoriously difficult to store; in liquified form, it must be kept at a temp =< -253 C and pressure of 1.013 bar. I should think a better reaction mass might be water or liquified CO2. The former could be stored in a tank surrounding the crew module to act as radiation shielding. Carbon dioxide is easily stored at temp/pressure, for example, of -35 C and 12 bar, the lower the temp, the less pressure required. Moreover, the rocket can be refueled from the Martian atmospheric CO2.
The problem with using water or CO2 is that the exhaust velocity of a nuclear thermal rocket is inversely proportional to the molar mass of the fuel. Water's specific impulse ends up being a bit worse than a hydrolox rocket, and CO2 ends up being a bit worse than a methalox rocket. Ammonia and methane are more promising since they offer better specific impulse than hydrolox rockets while still being easier to store than hydrogen. Theoretically hydrazine might also be quite effective since it decomposes into nitrogen and hydrogen, but no research has been done on it AFAIK.
@@lazarus2691 Interesting. Of the two, ammonia and methane, is it feasible to manufacture CH4 on Mars, given that CO2 and water are available as resources?
@@lazarus2691BUT it's quite toxic tho, or we could store it in the form of Hydrazine hydrate?
I have always heard that it is decaying neutrons not electrons that split atoms and create heat.
Why, or should I ask how does BO get involved with atomic rocket engine development? They're just now providing ULA with their BE-4 chemical engine that's almost 5 years behind schedule? Just what do they bring to the table? Can someone please provide and answer, thanks.
The US gov refused to let SpaceX have a uranium licence many years ago according to Gwynne Shotwell. Politics and money, Joe Biden preferts Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin as it spends more at the 'Hill', while he hates SpaceX. Strangely Joe Biden wants Starship to fail, despite NASA needing it to land on the Moon and has paid SpaceX to develop a Lunar Starship and the tanker Starships needed to resupply it in LEO!!!
That's easy! They needed someone to sue NASA when they don't get the contract, thus holding up development for a year+.
Are there any companies considering the SABRE (Synthetic Air Breathing Reaction Engine), where the engine uses oxygen in the atmosphere and switches to internal oxygen as the air thins? Alan Bond from the UK invented this years ago, but it does not appear to be talked about often enough. The Ad Astra Ion Thruster, a tiny Franklin Chang Diaz engine design, could easily be used to ferry large payloads to the moon and back with extremely limited need for fuel. Both engines deserve some love, and both are proven operational and need to go to the next level in the media.
When talking about the chain reaction during fission, it seems you said electronics but probably meant neutrons?
On a fuel combustion, the nozzel extension is cooled by the liquid oxygen before being burn. How the nozzel extension of nuclear engine will be cooled ?
Ah yes, the LV-N “Nerv” Atomic Rocket Motor
Instead of the nuclear engine using only hydrogen for thrust purposes, why not also use oxygen and thereby get some chemical thrust along with the nuclear thrust?
Yesterday I decided to read up on how nuclear power plants work and realize that the two cooling and heat exhaust or usage methods are supremely reliable enough to allow nuclear thermal propulsion, what a solution not using as much fuel. After reaching the destination, food, water, and Oxygen are still required.
I was so desperate for answers I even had to research how long it takes a nuclear power plant to heat up 1 Gallon of water at the initial temperature. I couldn't find my answer online except finding sources that elaborate on the essential parts and necessities of running a nuclear power plant and the prolonged startup times. It's a pretty long time and mathematical research shows it as being
So what happen to the super hot combustion chamber don't have liquid H fuel? How do you shut it off when thrust is no longer need?
At 12:03 that "5000° of radiative heat" is the HEAT that the reactor generates in order to make the fuel hot so the rocket goes *whoosh*. It is NOT something that has to be specifically shielded against to "keep from cooking the people on the ship" -- if there is that sort of temperature radiating toward the crew the rocket is no longer functioning as a rocket anymore. You are confusing thermal radiation with nuclear radiation. What you are thinking of is the shielding required to prevent ionising nuclear radiation (mostly neutrons) from irradiating the crew and sensitive structure and equipment. To a first approximation the neutron flux escaping from an operating nuclear reactor has nothing whatsoever to do with the temperature at which it is operating. The nuclear radiation shielding would still be needed even when the reactor is cooling down after operation until the hellfire of all the secondary radiation from nuclear byproducts has died down. The rocket does have to be designed to operate at that temperature and not flat out melt. This sort of solid core (non-melting!) nuclear rocket can have somewhere around 3 to 5 times the performance of the very best chemical rocket systems, a very, very big deal. However, the higher the effective temperature you can make the reactor work at the better the performance of the rocket would be. If you could arrange for the nuclear fuel to be so hot that it is gaseous at tens of thousands of degrees then you would get rockets with, say, ten times the performance of solid-core nuclear rockets. Such gaseous fission rockets could have propellant tanks smaller than their cargo holds yet be able to reach most anywhere in our solar system in months, not years. But the reactor still must not melt, even with its fuel at 10,000°.
There’s a documentary on KZhead when the AEC built KIWI, a stationary nuclear thermal rocket engine sometime in the late 50s.
*5-6months to mars, spacex has done quite wonderful things in the past few years…
From a design perspective, the most obvious vehicle they could create to test this thing within the timeline they've determined would be the classic Space Shuttle design, where the shuttle in question has installed within itself the Draco engine, is ferried out of the planet by a (likely) reusable booster unit following the trend started by SpaceX, and then, once it's outside and free of its boosters (which, by this point are doing the whole "smart landing back" on Earth), it goes for a spin around the moon using Nuclear Thermo-Propulsion, then returns to Earth using the conventional Space Shuttle methods. Then the NASA guys pick it up from its landing site and take a look at all that data about performance, fuel efficiency, etc. This method takes advantage from all the already tried-and-true methods of spaceflight, so them engineers can focus on simply adapting the Draco to do its thing without having to concern themselves about researching and designing a new vehicle from scratch.
The problem attaining the velocity required required is not as big a problem as the G-forces for prolonged times on Earthly beings , then again during deacceleration upon approaching the destination.
what I ask myself is if it would be possible to skip the whole moderator thing with low enriched uranium by using the liquid hydrogen propellant as moderator?
Imagine having a ship big enough to extract & utilise sun material and obtain electrical energy converted from thermals :D
The reason why they can push this so quickly is because we've had the technology since the 60s. Take a look at NERVA (Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Application), it's the same thing. I had a professor in college that worked on it back during the 60s and the stats from the 60s showed that we could have gotten from Earth to Mars in about a month compared to the present 12+ months with chemical rockets. The test engines were called Kiwis (flightless bird). They never got going because of how scared everyone was of nuclear with an accident potentially spreading all kinds of uranium all over the landscape if something happened while getting the engine into orbit (they weren't going to fire from the ground, only in space, they would use chemical rockets to get the NERVAs into orbit).
It's coming! And will change everything! Can't wait!
Yes we can do this.
A problem with nuclear fission is it frequently produces xenon gas, now if you could optimize the gas production you could make not only your energy from the fission process but also the propellant.
I think it’s gonna take them 15 and 20 years and do something like that why bc it’s the US and they don’t like to look for cheap things and save money and have even more money to get more progress done
The NERVA nuclear engine was successfully fully tested in the 1960s. Why NASA said it will fly a nuclear engine by 2027.
How to block the Radiation? Even in the 1960's they developed a full working and tested nuclear Jetengine. But because of the weight of the pb Isolation for the crew, they cancelled it. But for large ships it would be Superior. For Space they would need to bring the Fissionengine and the Hydrogentank with regular rocketengine to space. Than the isolation and than the crewpart into space. In the orbit they could connect these 3 Parts to one Rocket / Spaceship. But i think the Isolation will be the most difficult part, because of it's weight and shape.
Wouldn't a hybrid nuclear thermal/plasma engine be even more efficient? By turning the high temperature, high pressure "exhaust" into an even higher temperature and pressure thrust should be possible as a magnetic containment field will be necessary to protect crew and craft from the reactors radiation. Using it to create a "virtual nozzle" should be possible. IMO
Draco is also the name of an imaginary tavern where same really cool yarns were told
We could have a giant piston compressor in geosynchronous orbit gathering atoms to use as propellant in conjunction with nuclear engines. We would not need to carry fuel for the journey for each launch.
They will fall far short but still make astounding progress. Please take a look at what needs to be done. 1st is required a prototype capable of flying under remote control. This doesn't need anything fancy, but the test must be done in space or away from the Earth's surface. That will take at least 16 months. Then, you need another scaled-up engine that can be used as an industrial model for manufacturing more than one. That's at least another 10-12 months. I can see a lot of help with large-scale 3-D additive manufacturing, but that equipment is costly when discussing advanced metal composites and large pieces. How much of it will be able to be used in the final manufacturing is questionable since even the best 3D parts don't usually match their forged counterparts. Provided it's even possible to forge them. It's possible to do it in 5 years. I certainly wouldn't consider it a slam dunk; however, not by any means.
How long would it take to get to mars? And could it be used to have constant acceleration?
"Even though the future seems far away, it is actually beginning right now."
There was a Space 1999 episode about somebody firing a spaceship's nuclear engine too close to earth.
1. Submarines use nuclear reactors so it shouldn't be much different. The only complication in space is preventing the radiation from killing the people onboard. 2. Time to travel to other places in the solar system isn't the only problem, we still have to figure out how to deal with prolonged periods of time without gravity. The moon and Mars might be fine, but anything on the other side of the asteroid belt is still too far away. Other than that, great video, definitely a sep in the right direction
You already have to worry about space radiation killing the crew though, so it's not a novel danger.
Basically nuclear energy demands our respect. It's the first force of nature to do so on such a massive scale.
"Firmly based in science fact" seems like a bit of an attempted dig at the search for FTL travel. FTL travel research is ALSO based in "science fact." That's why the people looking into aren't saying "this is definitely possible," they're saying "according to our best current understanding of physics, this may be possible, so we should do more research and see if that's so."
This would also make getting to Mars a lot safer because the less time people are in space the better off they will be from the dangers of traveling in space.
That just get you out there where you can really get in trouble.
We should have done this in the 1980s!
I love this stuff, Im no engine Specialist, but , If the speed is vastly improved, How does the momentum get stopped in space,
Imagine if we invested in our people and the furtherance of our country and or just the human race and didnt waste resources on endless conflicts that will never be solved or end because a new one replaces it... Every conflict wastes so much rare materials money and people. We would be so far ahead if as a country and human race invested in things like this more and have every country on earth contribute. Eventually with tech and inmovation we could end hunger health problems, homelessness, and allow people to not even work one day and everyone would have all they needed. Unlimited resources are in space and planets like ours to live on if we could get there.
Even if NASA/DARPA took twice as long to develop the Technology/Demonstrator .. It Would Be Worth It 😮 !!