Nuclear-Powered Spacecraft Is Proposed for Voyage to Jupiter Moons

And are you ready for this - it would be called the JIMO! :-)

The craft would be a radical departure in that it will be equipped with a
nuclear reactor, instead of nuclear batteries. Power output would be about
1000 times higher than the nuclear battery method.

This opens exciting new possibilities for both power hungry sensors like
ground penetrating radar, and the unprecedented possibility of orbiting
one moon and then moving to another of Jupiter's moons at will (orbital
mechanics permitting, of course). The reactor will power an ion drive that
would be about 10 times more powerful than Deep Space One's drive.

Full article at NY Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/16/sc...UPI.html?8hpib

--
Tony Sivori

On or about Wed, 17 Dec 2003 15:50:33 -0800 (PST), Tony Sivori
made the sensational claim that:
And are you ready for this - it would be called the JIMO! :-)

Ok, we know. We've known for ages. We've associated this acronym with a
regular poster to this group for ages. We're gonna end up jinxing the mission.
:-P
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It's properly formatted | who you mean to reply-to | Inquire within if you
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And are you ready for this - it would be called the JIMO! :-)

The key thing here is "$8 billion".

Compare with the RTG powered missions at
http://centauri.larc.nasa.gov/newfrontiers/ for $700 million a pop.

Other links on JIMO:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...NGON3J5RN1.DTL
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/jimo/

Jim Kingdon wrote:

And are you ready for this - it would be called the JIMO! :-)

The key thing here is "$8 billion".

Hey, that's quite a bargain compared to $87 Billion (for starters) to pull
a deposed despot out of a hole in the ground.


Compare with the RTG powered missions at
http://centauri.larc.nasa.gov/newfrontiers/ for $700 million a pop.

Other links on JIMO:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...NGON3J5RN1.DTL
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/jimo/

Thanks for the links.

--
Tony Sivori

On Fri, 19 Dec 2003 05:04:39 -0800 (PST), in a place far, far away,
Tony Sivori made the phosphor on my
monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

Jim Kingdon wrote:

And are you ready for this - it would be called the JIMO! :-)

The key thing here is "$8 billion".

Hey, that's quite a bargain compared to $87 Billion (for starters) to pull
a deposed despot out of a hole in the ground.

We're getting much more than that for the money.

On or about Fri, 19 Dec 2003 06:39:19 -0800 (PST), Rand Simberg made the sensational claim that:
On Fri, 19 Dec 2003 05:04:39 -0800 (PST), in a place far, far away,
Tony Sivori made the phosphor on my
monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:
Hey, that's quite a bargain compared to $87 Billion (for starters) to pull
a deposed despot out of a hole in the ground.

We're getting much more than that for the money.

Like what? And don't even think about saying anything along the lines of
"a safer world".
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It's properly formatted | who you mean to reply-to | Inquire within if you
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LooseChanj wrote in message . com...
On or about Fri, 19 Dec 2003 06:39:19 -0800 (PST), Rand Simberg made the sensational claim that:
On Fri, 19 Dec 2003 05:04:39 -0800 (PST), in a place far, far away,
Tony Sivori made the phosphor on my
monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:
Hey, that's quite a bargain compared to $87 Billion (for starters) to pull
a deposed despot out of a hole in the ground.

We're getting much more than that for the money.

Like what? And don't even think about saying anything along the lines of
"a safer world".

Quality programming on CNN ??

Whatever We're getting for the money, $8 billion is more than half the
annual NASA budget. The armed forces have a few more pennies than that to
play with. BTW if we do build a nuclear reactor powered Jupiter boat,
should we be using MPD rather ion drives? They're supposed to be much more
efficient at higher powers than ion, and they could scoop hydrogen from
Jupiter to refuel.
"Rand Simberg" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 19 Dec 2003 05:04:39 -0800 (PST), in a place far, far away,
Tony Sivori made the phosphor on my
monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

Jim Kingdon wrote:

And are you ready for this - it would be called the JIMO! :-)

The key thing here is "$8 billion".

Hey, that's quite a bargain compared to $87 Billion (for starters) to
pull
a deposed despot out of a hole in the ground.

We're getting much more than that for the money.

sharpthoughts wrote:

Whatever We're getting for the money, $8 billion is more than half the
annual NASA budget. The armed forces have a few more pennies than that to
play with. BTW if we do build a nuclear reactor powered Jupiter boat,
should we be using MPD rather ion drives? They're supposed to be much
more efficient at higher powers than ion, and they could scoop hydrogen
from Jupiter to refuel.

Too much "fiction" and not enough "science" in this idea. You'd have to
store enough H2 to get to Jupiter in the first place, then try an untested,
science-fiction idea (scooping H2 from Jupiter's atmosphere) for the first
time ever and hope it works.

--
Herb Schaltegger, B.S., J.D.
Reformed Aerospace Engineer
Remove invalid nonsense for email.

Why must JIMO be nuclear? What's wrong with hydrogen fuel cells?
Alternatively, why not strap together 10 deep space ones and use the same
light collectors?
"Tony Sivori" wrote in message
news
And are you ready for this - it would be called the JIMO! :-)

The craft would be a radical departure in that it will be equipped with a
nuclear reactor, instead of nuclear batteries. Power output would be about
1000 times higher than the nuclear battery method.

This opens exciting new possibilities for both power hungry sensors like
ground penetrating radar, and the unprecedented possibility of orbiting
one moon and then moving to another of Jupiter's moons at will (orbital
mechanics permitting, of course). The reactor will power an ion drive that
would be about 10 times more powerful than Deep Space One's drive.

Full article at NY Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/16/sc...UPI.html?8hpib

--
Tony Sivori