"To The End Of The Solar System"

Just finished reading "To The End Of The Solar System: the story of the
nuclear rocket", by James A. Dewar. Very interesting book, in two quite
separate ways.

The first, obviously, is that it's a history of the nuclear-rocket
program. More formally, a history of Rover/NERVA, with some commentary on
related efforts. The main narrative is as much about politics as
technology, but there are some very nice all-tech appendixes on things
like advanced concepts. (E.g., the reason why construction of the Dumbo
test engine was cancelled, and no, it wasn't the choice of nozzle.)

Secondly, something I wasn't expecting, it's also a history of the rise,
decline, and fall of the concept of "preeminence" in space -- the idea
that NASA's job was to open up the New Frontier, with Apollo being only
the first small step. Very briefly -- for less than three years, in the
early 60s -- preeminence *was* official policy, and James Webb's NASA was
not merely permitted but firmly encouraged to make detailed plans for Mars
*and beyond*, to seriously ask questions like where the first colony in
the Jovian system should be located or how cooling technology for gas-core
nuclear rockets would affect the cost of bulk freight from Earth to Titan.
It comes up in this book because NERVA was intimately tied up with NASA's
post-Apollo plans. So long as preeminence was the goal, there was no
doubt that nuclear rockets would be needed and soon. When there started
to be serious debate about whether a near-term nuclear-rocket flight test
was needed, it meant that preeminence was dying. So the book ends up
being a history of US space politics in the 1960s and early 1970s too.
(Plus some unexpected side issues, like how the SST died.) All three
presidents of that era end up looking rather different than the popular
beliefs would have it.

Highly recommended.
--
"Think outside the box -- the box isn't our friend." | Henry Spencer
-- George Herbert |

Thanks for the pointer...

All three
presidents of that era end up looking rather different than the popular
beliefs would have it.

You've obviously fished before -- because you sure know how to set a
hook... :-)

--
Reed

Henry Spencer wrote:

(E.g., the reason why construction of the Dumbo
test engine was cancelled, and no, it wasn't the choice of nozzle.)


IIRC, it was the difficulty in getting the extremely small laminar flow
propellant channels cut into the reactant in a consistent and cost
effective form, wasn't it? Analog magazine had a whole article about it
by one of the people who worked on it a couple decades or so ago...he
suggested that the laminar flow channels could be cut to high tolerance
by lasers- which they didn't have the ability to do at the time the
program was canceled.

Pat

In article ,
Pat Flannery wrote:
(E.g., the reason why construction of the Dumbo
test engine was cancelled, and no, it wasn't the choice of nozzle.)

IIRC, it was the difficulty in getting the extremely small laminar flow
propellant channels cut into the reactant in a consistent and cost
effective form, wasn't it?

Quite so. Getting highly consistent fuel elements was a problem even for
NERVA. The engine's power limit is reached when the *hottest* area is on
the verge of overheating... but its performance is determined by the
*average* temperature. So the wider the spread between average element
and hottest element, the farther the engine falls short of its theoretical
performance. Pushing the performance right up to the theoretical limit
requires very consistent, very reproducible fuel-element properties.

The first attempts to fabricate fuel elements for the molybdenum test
engine (molybdenum being good enough to demonstrate feasibility, and
rather easier to work with than tungsten) showed a spread of properties so
wide that the engine would have had no performance advantage over NERVA.
Cutting very fine cooling passages, and plating very thin layers of
uranium, precisely enough to get good performance at reasonable cost
simply wasn't in the cards.
--
"Think outside the box -- the box isn't our friend." | Henry Spencer
-- George Herbert |

The NASA Technical Reports Server has available a PDF format final
report on the ROVER program.

Also listed are other nuclear propulsion reports on the NTRS server
that are available in PDF format.


Rover Nuclear Rocket Engine Program - Overview of Rover Engine Tests -
Final Report 1991
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/ca...1992005899.pdf

Reactor in-flight test system. Volume 1: RIFT program summary - 1961
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/ca...1974074802.pdf


Nuclear Rocket Propulsion - 1962
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/ca...1963001636.pdf

Nuclear pulse space vehicle study. volume i- summary - 1964
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/ca...1965058729.pdf


Assembly and brazing of NERVA U-tube nozzles - 1965
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/ca...1975068371.pdf


Nuclear pulse vehicle study - 1965
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/ca...1976065935.pdf


Nuclear pulse space vehicle study. Volume IV - Mission velocity
requirements and system comparisons - 1966
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/ca...1966072847.pdf


Nuclear pulse space vehicle study. Volume IV - Mission velocity
requirements and system comparisons /Supplement/ - 1966
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/ca...1966072846.pdf


Nuclear Rocket Technology Conference - 1966
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/ca...1973061727.pdf


Nuclear criticality study of a specific vortex-stabilized gaseous
nuclear rocket engine - 1967
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/ca...1970073228.pdf


A method of predicting heat transfer coefficients in the cooling
passages of NERVA and Phoebus-2 rocket nozzles - 1968
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/ca...1968014393.pdf


Feasibility study of a tungsten water-moderated nuclear rocket. 1:
Summary report - 1968
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/ca...1972066825.pdf


Feasibility study of a tungsten water-moderated nuclear rocket. 2:
Fueled materials - 1968
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/ca...1972066826.pdf

Feasibility study of a tungsten water-moderated nuclear rocket. 3: Fuel
elements - 1968
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/ca...1972066827.pdf


Feasibility study of a tungsten water-moderated nuclear rocket. 4:
Neutronics - 1968
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/ca...1972066828.pdf


Feasibility study of a tungsten water-moderated nuclear rocket. 5:
Engine system - 1968
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/ca...1972066832.pdf


Feasibility study of a tungsten water-moderated nuclear rocket. 6: Feed
system and rotating machinery - 1968
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/ca...1972066829.pdf


Experimental investigations to simulate the thermal environment,
transparent walls, and propellant heating in a nuclear light bulb
engine - 1969
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/ca...1970002925.pdf


Status of nuclear flight system definition studies - 1971
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/ca...1979073697.pdf


Fluid dynamics computer programs for NERVA turbopump - 1972
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/ca...1973015943.pdf


Comparison of mission design options for manned Mars missions - 1986
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/ca...1994004168.pdf


Preliminary survey of 21st century civil mission applications of space
nuclear power - 1987
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/ca...1991005504.pdf


Comparison of Fusion/Antiproton Propulsion Systems for Interplanetary
Travel - 1987
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/ca...1996043322.pdf


Nuclear propulsion: A vital technology for the exploration of Mars and
the planets beyond - 1988
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/ca...1989001573.pdf


Manned Mars Explorer project: Guidelines for a manned mission to the
vicinity of Mars using Phobos as a staging outpost; schematic vehicle
designs considering chemical and nuclear electric propulsion - 1988
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/ca...1989008233.pdf


Nuclear technology and the space exploration missions - 1990
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/ca...1990013531.pdf


An historical perspective of the NERVA nuclear rocket engine technology
program - 1991
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/ca...1991017902.pdf

Nuclear Thermal Propulsion: A Joint NASA/DOE/DOD Workshop - 1991
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/ca...1992001870.pdf


Nuclear thermal propulsion transportation systems for lunar/Mars
exploration - 1992
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/ca...1993003175.pdf


The rationale/benefits of nuclear thermal rocket propulsion for NASA's
lunar space transportation system - 1994
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/ca...1995109268.pdf

Scoping calculations of power sources for nuclear electric propulsion -
1994
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/ca...1994029705.pdf


Conceptual Design of a Vapor Core Reactor Rocket Engine for Space
Propulsion - 1996
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/ca...1996043610.pdf
--
Rusty

(Henry Spencer) wrote:

The first, obviously, is that it's a history of the nuclear-rocket
program. More formally, a history of Rover/NERVA, with some commentary on
related efforts. The main narrative is as much about politics as
technology,

Frankly; the politics is every bit as important as the technology. In
most things the two are inescapably intertwined with economics.

Techno-geeks of all stripes however tend to ignore these unsexy bits.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL

(Henry Spencer) wrote:
The engine's power limit is reached when the *hottest* area is on
the verge of overheating... but its performance is determined by the
*average* temperature. So the wider the spread between average element
and hottest element, the farther the engine falls short of its theoretical
performance.

To a first order, that applies to all nuclear reactors.

A nuke once sat down with me and we compared naval reactors to the
(also Rickover designed) Shippingport reactor, and the differences
were significant. (And not just in the obvious areas.)

It's been rumored that Rickover (via his 'second hat' over at the AEC)
quietly steered commercial designs away from some areas in order to
prevent possible public knowledge of certain details and design
methodologies.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL

Rusty wrote:

The NASA Technical Reports Server has available a PDF format final
report on the ROVER program.

Also listed are other nuclear propulsion reports on the NTRS server
that are available in PDF format.


I'm glad my ISP kicked us all up to high speed internet access for the
month of December.
More great stuff, as usual, Rusty!
I'll be particularly interested in the gaseous core reactor reports.
You might want to post this material as its own thread to make sure that
everyone sees it.

Pat

On Wed, 15 Dec 2004 15:30:08 -0600, Pat Flannery wrote:

Rusty wrote:

Also listed are other nuclear propulsion reports on the NTRS server
that are available in PDF format.

More great stuff, as usual, Rusty!
I'll be particularly interested in the gaseous core reactor reports.
You might want to post this material as its own thread to make sure that
everyone sees it.

There are beings out there that don't follow Henry-spawned threads?

Pat

--
Chuck Stewart
"Anime-style catgirls: Threat? Menace? Or just studying algebra?"

(Henry Spencer) wrote in
:

Just finished reading "To The End Of The Solar System: the story of
the nuclear rocket", by James A. Dewar. Very interesting book, in two
quite separate ways.

Ouch, expensive! $65-$70. Might have to wait a while on this
one to show up on the used lists.

Goes on my Christmas wish list; I know Santa entertains
obscure requests.


--Damon, who never met a rocket engine he didn't like