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[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

Could NASA Get To Pluto Faster? Space Expert Says Yes - By Thinking Nuclear

Washington DC (SPX) Jan 30, 2006
As NASA's New Horizons spacecraft winds its way on a nine-year journey toward Pluto and the outer solar system, at least one expert wonders why such missions need to take so long.

Paul A. Czysz, a 30-year veteran of the industry, continuing consultant to the U.S. military and professor emeritus of aerospace engineering at St. Louis University, thinks NASA can curb the travel time to the outer planets from nearly a decade to a matter of weeks - something he considers critical for the human exploration of the solar system. What's required, he said, is a renewed commitment to nuclear propulsion.

. Nuclear works best when it's in a vacuum. Then you can get the maximum thrust, and the exhaust from nuclear will always have something in it that you don't want to get into the atmosphere. But you also have to work on reducing costs - achieved, say, by not having to throw the rocket away each time, or if you establish an infrastructure in space.

All the interview details of this concept here: www.spacedaily.com/reports/Could_NASA_Get_To_Pluto_Faster_Space_Expert_Says_Yes_By_Thinking_Nuclear.html

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I remember as a kid, reading about the "Prometheus project" system of space travel, in where a series of nuclear bombs would be detonated behind the spacecraft for ever increasing propulsion.

Here is a link on a recent White House approval of the project and details:

White House Go-Ahead On NASA Nuclear Prometheus Project

www.space.com/businesstechnology/nuclear_power_030117.html

But think about the contanimation it would leave behind in it's wake.

[Maddad]

That Prometheus project sounds like the Orion project that I debated exhaustively in another forum.

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

Dave,

What were the points of the debate?

I recall an illustration of the craft.... Atom bombs exploding behind the ship...one after another after another...looking like a small star pushing the machine.

Link it....I would like to follow along please.

[Maddad]

Bingo, Joe. That was the idea. For more reasons than you can shake a stick at, the plan won't work.