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* In ''Literature/TalesOfPirxThePilot'', spacecrafts be one-man patrol ships or freighters with a mass of many thousands of tons are powered by nuclear rockets. The dangers of their usage (ie, the nuclear reactor failing and exploding) are often touched.
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* A common idea, called a "Nuclear Thermal Rocket," is to use the heat of a conventional nuclear reactor to heat hydrogen gas (any other fuel isn't worth it; hydrogen gives the best returns for its weight but is a nightmare to store and carry around). Some theoretical designs have a reactor added to a conventional rocket, to be turned on for interplanetary travel, which is called a "Bimodal nuclear thermal rocket." This has proved problematic for both political (most people and countries [[BringMeMyBrownPants mess their drawers]] at the word [[AtomicHate "nuclear"]]) and practical (the darn thing needs a few tons of shielding to keep from frying the astronauts, the fuel is constantly trying to escape, etc) reasons. A few were tested by the United States in the NERVA project; but never used on anything [[OhCrap due to parts of the reactor being carried away in the rocket exhaust]]. [[SovietSuperscience The USSR claimed to have solved the shielding and reactor erosion problems,]] but it never actually built or launched one, suggesting that that was a lie. Subsequent basic research by several governments has not led to much progress.
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* A common idea, called a "Nuclear Thermal Rocket," Rocket" (NTR), is to use the heat of a (usually) conventional nuclear reactor to heat hydrogen gas (any other fuel isn't worth it; hydrogen gives the best returns for its weight but is a nightmare to store and carry around). Some theoretical designs have a reactor added to a conventional rocket, to be turned on for interplanetary travel, which is called a "Bimodal nuclear thermal rocket." This has proved problematic for both political (most people and countries [[BringMeMyBrownPants mess their drawers]] at the word [[AtomicHate "nuclear"]]) and practical (the darn thing needs a few tons of shielding to keep from frying the astronauts, the fuel is constantly trying to escape, etc) reasons. A few were tested by the United States in the NERVA project; but never used on anything (due to [[OhCrap due to parts of the reactor being carried away in the rocket exhaust]]. [[SovietSuperscience The exhaust]] for the early ones, and primarily budget cuts for the later ones [after they fixed the problems with erosion of the fuel elements], coupled with the cancellation of all the heavyweight high-delta-V missions that would've required the NTR in order to meet their delta-V budget). Both the U.S. and the USSR claimed to have later solved the shielding and reactor erosion problems,]] problems for the relatively-simple solid-core NTR, but it never a combination of budget cuts, worries about contamination downrange if one failed to reach orbit (or if one decayed ''from'' orbit and disintegrated in the upper atmosphere), and (for the U.S. at least) an aversion to nuclear technology except where absolutely necessary, meant that neither country ever actually built or launched one, suggesting that that was a lie. Subsequent basic one. Much of the NTR research since then (led by several governments governments, including the aforementioned two) has not led focussed on the gas-core NTR, which has a theoretical performance ''vastly'' in excess of even the solid-core NTR and potentially attractive enough (at least for some missions) to outweigh the above issues, but the "open" gas-core NTR (where the fuel gas is held in the reaction chamber purely by hydrodynamic means), which is required in order to get the fuel hot enough for the maximum theoretical performance, has seemingly-insurmountable problems (keeping the fuel from escaping is practically impossible [and gets progressively harder ''still'' under even very gentle acceleration], efficiently transferring all that heat to the hydrogen propellant rather than the reactor walls is extremely difficult, and, even if you ''do'' manage to get most of the heat from the fuel gas into the propellant, the fuel is so darn ''hot'' [in the tens-to-hundreds of ''thousands'' of Kelvin in the highest-performance designs] that even the small leftover amount of thermal radiation absorbed by the engine itself is still enough to cause hideous thermal issues) which we aren't much progress.closer to solving than we were in the 70s, and the "closed" gas-core NTR (a.k.a. "nuclear lightbulb", as it holds the fuel gas in a number of fused-quartz bulbs which the hydrogen flows over the outsides of) has a lower maximum performance while still having issues (albeit not nearly as insurmountable as the open gas-core NTR has).
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Changed line(s) 91 (click to see context) from:
* A common idea, called a "Nuclear Thermal Rocket," is to use the heat of a conventional nuclear reactor to heat hydrogen gas (any other fuel isn't worth it; hydrogen gives the best returns for its weight but is a nightmare to store and carry around). Some theoretical designs have a reactor added to a conventional rocket, to be turned on for interplanetary travel, which is called a "Bimodal nuclear thermal rocket." This has proved problematic for both political (most people and countries [[BringMeMyBrownPants mess their drawers]] at the word [[AtomicHate "nuclear"]]) and practical (the darn thing needs a few tons of shielding to keep from frying the astronauts, the fuel is constantly trying to escape, etc) reasons. A few were tested by the United States in the NERVA project; but never used on anything [[OhCrap due to parts of the reactor being carried away in the rocket exhaust]]. [[SovietSuperscience The USSR claimed to have solved the shielding and reactor erosion problems,]] but it never actually built or launched a one, suggesting that that was a lie. Subsequent basic research by several governments has not led to much.
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* A common idea, called a "Nuclear Thermal Rocket," is to use the heat of a conventional nuclear reactor to heat hydrogen gas (any other fuel isn't worth it; hydrogen gives the best returns for its weight but is a nightmare to store and carry around). Some theoretical designs have a reactor added to a conventional rocket, to be turned on for interplanetary travel, which is called a "Bimodal nuclear thermal rocket." This has proved problematic for both political (most people and countries [[BringMeMyBrownPants mess their drawers]] at the word [[AtomicHate "nuclear"]]) and practical (the darn thing needs a few tons of shielding to keep from frying the astronauts, the fuel is constantly trying to escape, etc) reasons. A few were tested by the United States in the NERVA project; but never used on anything [[OhCrap due to parts of the reactor being carried away in the rocket exhaust]]. [[SovietSuperscience The USSR claimed to have solved the shielding and reactor erosion problems,]] but it never actually built or launched a one, suggesting that that was a lie. Subsequent basic research by several governments has not led to much.much progress.
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* A common idea, called a "Nuclear Thermal Rocket," is to use the heat of a conventional nuclear reactor to heat hydrogen gas (any other fuel isn't worth it; hydrogen gives the best returns for its weight but is a nightmare to store and carry around) as with N.E.R.V. and Project: Timberwind. Some theoretical designs have a reactor added to a conventional rocket, to be turned on for interplanetary travel, which is called a "Bimodal nuclear thermal rocket." This has proved problematic for both political (most people and countries [[BringMeMyBrownPants mess their drawers]] at the word [[AtomicHate "nuclear"]]) and practical (the darn thing needs a few tons of shielding to keep from frying the astronauts, the fuel is constantly trying to escape, etc) reasons. A few were tested, but never used on anything. [[SovietSuperscience The USSR claimed to have solved the shielding problem,]] and China states they have one capable of reaching Mars inside of a week, but the fact that neither government had/have even set foot on the moon, let alone Mars proves them lies.
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* A common idea, called a "Nuclear Thermal Rocket," is to use the heat of a conventional nuclear reactor to heat hydrogen gas (any other fuel isn't worth it; hydrogen gives the best returns for its weight but is a nightmare to store and carry around) as with N.E.R.V. and Project: Timberwind. around). Some theoretical designs have a reactor added to a conventional rocket, to be turned on for interplanetary travel, which is called a "Bimodal nuclear thermal rocket." This has proved problematic for both political (most people and countries [[BringMeMyBrownPants mess their drawers]] at the word [[AtomicHate "nuclear"]]) and practical (the darn thing needs a few tons of shielding to keep from frying the astronauts, the fuel is constantly trying to escape, etc) reasons. A few were tested, tested by the United States in the NERVA project; but never used on anything. anything [[OhCrap due to parts of the reactor being carried away in the rocket exhaust]]. [[SovietSuperscience The USSR claimed to have solved the shielding problem,]] and China states they have one capable of reaching Mars inside of a week, reactor erosion problems,]] but the fact it never actually built or launched a one, suggesting that neither government had/have even set foot on the moon, let alone Mars proves them lies.that was a lie. Subsequent basic research by several governments has not led to much.
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* Used by Creator/JamesWhite in several of his stories. In ''Lifeboat'', the radioactive and explosive potential failure modes are invoked to justify the passengers and crew of a spaceship evacuating to [[EscapePod escape pods]] rather than remaining with the ship until an automated rescue vehicle can reach them.
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* In ''Series/{{Andromeda}}'', the ''Bellerophon'' is an ancient STL starship launched by Earth not long before FirstContact with the Perseids (resulting in humanity being given slipstream travel. The ship has a massive fusion torch for a drive. While the ship is unarmed, she can use the drive's WeaponizedExhaust to cook enemy ships, although it uses up a lot of the fuel. The ship's been traveling the galaxy for about 1500 years, still committed to its mission of discovery thanks to TimeDilation, even though humanity has settled countless worlds in three galaxies since then.
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* In ''Series/{{Andromeda}}'', the ''Bellerophon'' is an ancient STL starship launched by Earth not long before FirstContact with the Perseids (resulting Perseids, resulting in humanity being given slipstream travel. The ship has a massive fusion torch for a drive. While the ship is unarmed, she can use the drive's WeaponizedExhaust to cook enemy ships, although it uses up a lot of the fuel. The ship's been traveling the galaxy for about 1500 years, still committed to its mission of discovery thanks to TimeDilation, even though humanity has settled countless worlds in three galaxies since then.
