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Old November 19th 17, 08:50 PM posted to sci.space.policy
Greg \(Strider\) Moore
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Default China wants to catch up to US rockets in 2020 and then get nuclear spaceships in 2045

"Jeff Findley" wrote in message
...

In article ,
says...
See:

https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2017/1...s-in-2045.html


China frequently 'plans' things that it just can't execute. They
'planned' to build 20 aircraft carriers in 20 years, too. They built
one.

I don't understand why nuclear thermal rockets are 'necessary'.


They are not necessary. Neither are fly-back reusable first stages.
But in the long run, once development costs are paid for, they can
make things cheaper. Once in orbit, high ISP is very useful.


You misunderstand me. NASA has claimed that they are NECESSARY to get
fast trip times and that's how they're justifying funding. It's a
lie.


Agreed. All you really need is "cheap access to space", then you can
launch as much LOX/methane and/or LOX/hydrogen propellant to achieve the
delta-V necessary to make the mission "fast" (whatever that means).


Yeah, all this "we have to study more and more" etc is really BS.

Getting to Mars ultimately comes down to mass. The more mass you can throw
at the problem, the easier it becomes.

And SpaceX is certainly making it a lot easier to throw mass at the problem.

Even w/o BFR, Falcon Heavy is promising to throw a lot more mass to orbit at
a lower cost than SLS ever will.

I'm betting on the Heavy or BFR long before SLS.

Rather than throwing multi-billions of dollars down the rat-hole of SLS
funding, it would be more efficient to fund "commercial HLV" with down-
selects to three and eventually two providers. With the current trends
in the industry, no doubt at least one of those providers would
incorporate reuse of at least the first stage.

Instead, SLS will reuse absolutely nothing. With likely more than $1
billion dollars of hardware wasted on each and every flight, the program
is a complete economic disaster. It's from this (dismal) point of view
that some people at NASA reason that nuclear propulsion is "necessary"
for a trip to Mars. But, when you start with the wrong assumptions, you
arrive at the wrong conclusions.

Jeff


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