General Atomics successfully tests fuels to be used in an in-space nuclear propulsion system
The company General Atomics announced yesterday that it has successfully tested the fuels it wants to use in an in-space nuclear propulsion system for transporting ships to the Moon and beyond much faster and more efficiently than is presently possible with chemical engines.
[General Atomics] executed several high-impact tests at NASA’s MSFC in Huntsville, AL. The nuclear fuel was tested with hot hydrogen flow through the samples and subjected to six thermal cycles that rapidly ramped-up to a peak temperature of 2600 K (Kelvin) or 4220° Fahrenheit. Each cycle included a 20-minute hold at peak performance to demonstrate the effectiveness of shielding the fuel material from erosion and degradation by the hot hydrogen. Additional tests were performed with varying protective features to provide further data on how different material enhancements improve performance under reactor-like conditions.
It has been known since the 1960s the nuclear propulsion is more efficient that chemical engines. It can burn for longer time periods at higher levels, thus making it possible to get to other planets more quickly, in some cases bypassing the need to depend on orbital mechanics.
The problem however has been political. Getting these nuclear engines into orbit has been too much of a political hot potato. The fear of such engines and radioactivity, largely irrational, has made it impossible to get them built. NASA is now trying again.
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The company General Atomics announced yesterday that it has successfully tested the fuels it wants to use in an in-space nuclear propulsion system for transporting ships to the Moon and beyond much faster and more efficiently than is presently possible with chemical engines.
[General Atomics] executed several high-impact tests at NASA’s MSFC in Huntsville, AL. The nuclear fuel was tested with hot hydrogen flow through the samples and subjected to six thermal cycles that rapidly ramped-up to a peak temperature of 2600 K (Kelvin) or 4220° Fahrenheit. Each cycle included a 20-minute hold at peak performance to demonstrate the effectiveness of shielding the fuel material from erosion and degradation by the hot hydrogen. Additional tests were performed with varying protective features to provide further data on how different material enhancements improve performance under reactor-like conditions.
It has been known since the 1960s the nuclear propulsion is more efficient that chemical engines. It can burn for longer time periods at higher levels, thus making it possible to get to other planets more quickly, in some cases bypassing the need to depend on orbital mechanics.
The problem however has been political. Getting these nuclear engines into orbit has been too much of a political hot potato. The fear of such engines and radioactivity, largely irrational, has made it impossible to get them built. NASA is now trying again.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
Why is it we have to pay for the same research over & over again?
Because folks keep killing it
Speaking of which…
I wonder what Stanton Friedman (who passed in 2019) might say about all of this?
Fuel?
They actually used the word “Fuel?” How quaint, like something out of an H.G. Wells novel. The word is propellant and the only rational propellant to use in a solid core nuclear rocket is Hydrogen. So, why didn’t they say “we heated up hydrogen and ran it through a novel to mimic a nuclear rocket?” I have no idea as to why other than they were looking to be mysterious about nuclear rockets. Or the fact that they are repeating tests done more than 50 years ago.
With a temperature of 2600 K, I can guess the Isp.
Isp=2.3*sqrt(1.405*4126*2600)/9.81=910 seconds. I’m guessing at the vacuum nozzle’s efficiency, but 900 is the number people have been playing with for first generation nuclear rockets since the 70s.
same ol’ same ol’
Nuclear Propulsion for Space (1968)
https://youtu.be/eDNX65d-FBY
23:48
I’ve come to believe that the government funds research into some subjects every generation not to learn anything but to keep a living and active corps of people who hold the knowledge in reserve.
When the project was called Timberwind, Dr. Bussard had a lot to say about it. Mind you, he would never whisper a word about Kiwi/Nerva, but he wasn’t limited in what he could say about a project he wasn’t signed off on. He felt that Timberwind could not work unless they dumped the laminar flow heat exchangers.
Rodney,
The word “fuel” applies to the radioactives and their encapsulation technology that constitute the active core of a nuclear thermal rocket. In any rocket, fuel is what creates the heat. In chemical rockets, the fuel also becomes part of the reaction mass as it is chemically transformed in the process of generating said heat. In a nuclear thermal rocket, these roles are entirely separate – the fuel generates all the heat and the reaction mass picks up said heat and carries it while expanding to generate thrust.
Rodney wrote: “… and the only rational propellant to use in a solid core nuclear rocket is Hydrogen.”
The article sounds to me as though they were testing the core with hydrogen to make sure the propellant did not react with the core and degrade it.
In addition, hydrogen may be a good propellant at the velocities that this core can reach, but because the energy needed to increase the velocity increases with the square of that velocity, there comes a speed at which the power plant’s mass starts to increase faster than the momentum of the propellant. At that point, despite the high specific impulse of hydrogen, more massive propellants begin to produce a better delta-v for the whole system.
There are other difficulties with using pure hydrogen, such as its low boiling point, making it difficult to store for long periods of time. Hydrogen may give an excellent mass-efficiency (high specific impulse), when considered in isolation of the rest of the system, but making it work could be the challenge.
Phoebus-2A: LASL’s 4000-Megawatt Nuclear Rocket Engine
https://youtu.be/LjU9kP_zd70
11:45
Kiwi: TNT (Transient Nuclear Test)
https://youtu.be/4zSCdYu2Ps8
28:12
“A modified Kiwi Reactor was forced to go super-critical and destroy itself under controlled conditions.”