Russia Thinks It Can Use Nukes to Fly to Mars in 45 Days--If It CanFind the Rubles

"The Russians think they can do better. Last week, their national nuclear
corporation Rosatom announced it is building a nuclear engine that will reach
Mars in a month and a half--with fuel to burn for the trip home. Russia might not
achieve its goal of launching a prototype by 2025. But that has more to do with
the country's financial situation (not great) than the technical challenges of a
nuclear engine."

See:

http://www.wired.com/2016/03/russia-...n-find-rubles/

On Saturday, March 12, 2016 at 12:26:18 PM UTC+13, wrote:
"The Russians think they can do better. Last week, their national nuclear
corporation Rosatom announced it is building a nuclear engine that will reach
Mars in a month and a half--with fuel to burn for the trip home. Russia might not
achieve its goal of launching a prototype by 2025. But that has more to do with
the country's financial situation (not great) than the technical challenges of a
nuclear engine."

See:

http://www.wired.com/2016/03/russia-...n-find-rubles/

Russia, with China, India and Brazil, will finance this using their own credit capacity.

http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/12/mic...lsion-and.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_C...nuclear_device)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGytW_C6hR8

A 20 ton nuclear device using Lithium-6 and Deuterium would weigh as little as 309 milligrams. It would produce a directed plasma of alpha particles using a powerful magnet, with an exhaust velocity of 22,000 km/sec. To produce 10.47 MN of thrust (the same as a Proton rocket) requires 1,540 of these tiny devices be exploded per second. Energising a jet of air that moves at 5 km/sec requires that 2,094 kg/sec of air be accelerated with only one micro-blast every few seconds. This allows take off without vaporising the launch structure. As mass flow rate through the nuclear pulse jet is reduced, power levels rise, along with exhaust velocity. Virtually grams of nuclear material are needed to lift the 400 ton rocket into LEO. Once in LEO the ship departs blasting 577 'dots' through its engine each second 629 grams per hour maintaining 1 gee acceleration.

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i...+mars+to+earth

Mars is presently 143.3 billion meters from Earth in the constellation Scorpius at 08:02:58 UTC
Sunday, 13 March 2016

right ascension | 16^h 2^m 43.7^s
declination | -19° 29' 28.6"

At one gee it will take 67.157 hours for the ship to arrive at Mars consuming 42 kilograms of propellant to move the 400 ton ship in this way. They land on several spots on Mars, and reconnoiter Diemos and Phobos, over 8 days, and then depart to Earth, arriving at Earth two weeks after departing! With their spacecraft in tact, ready to go again!

The 'dots' of miniature fusion bombs, when buried half a meter in the ground, will blast out a cubic meter of rock, in the form of high temperature plasma. The same magnetic field that directed the alpha particles, will extract direct and separate the plasma formed in this way. The plasma separated by the magnetic field and a time of flight process, isolates each isotope, and collects it for additive manufacture, of ANYTHING. The important detail is that the technology described here can process THOUSANDS OF TONS PER SECOND into ANYTHING that can be manufactured with additive manufacturing!

5% of the ship is engine, 20 tons, and operated as a part of a fusion powered universal constructor, can self replicate in less than a second. Since there is 200x more energy in asteroid and inner planet crust than it takes to vaporise it in this way, this is a net energy producer!

http://periodictable.com/Properties/...ndance.an.html

It takes about 10 tons per person to create a space habitat that provides adequate life support to provide a good life.

http://www.nss.org/settlement/Coloni...es_chap09.html

Processing rock into useful material at thousands of tons per second, by repurposing the bomblets for the engine described above, allows the creation of support facilities for hundreds of persons per second - FOR EACH ENGINE. Of course, the engine and entire spacecraft can also be replicated in less than a second. So, starting with 400 tons, it takes less than 45 seconds to process all of Mars' 55.91 million sq km to a depth of 100 meters into billions of spacecraft and billions of homes. Automated with advanced AI, these spacecraft would make their way back to Earth to offer to every man woman and child who signed a non-agression pledge, with the Russians, to be transported back to their home Mars, two weeks after departure of the first ship. 10 days after departure of the first ship, at 132 people per square kilometer, 7.38 billion people are supported on Mars.

Earth is depopulated, the weapons systems remaining are deactivated, those who would not pledge non agression will be rounded up and sent to re-education centers, as the excesses of industrial humanity are cleaned up and the Earth is returned to pre-human balance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASsNtti1XZs

On Mar/13/2016 4:32 AM, William Mook wrote :
On Saturday, March 12, 2016 at 12:26:18 PM UTC+13, wrote:
"The Russians think they can do better. Last week, their national nuclear
corporation Rosatom announced it is building a nuclear engine that will reach
Mars in a month and a half--with fuel to burn for the trip home. Russia might not
achieve its goal of launching a prototype by 2025. But that has more to do with
the country's financial situation (not great) than the technical challenges of a
nuclear engine."

See:

http://www.wired.com/2016/03/russia-...n-find-rubles/

Russia, with China, India and Brazil, will finance this using their own credit capacity.

They certainly have the financial capacity to do so. I doubt very much
they have the political will.


Alain Fournier

On Monday, March 14, 2016 at 1:56:24 AM UTC+13, Alain Fournier wrote:
On Mar/13/2016 4:32 AM, William Mook wrote :
On Saturday, March 12, 2016 at 12:26:18 PM UTC+13, wrote:
"The Russians think they can do better. Last week, their national nuclear
corporation Rosatom announced it is building a nuclear engine that will reach
Mars in a month and a half--with fuel to burn for the trip home. Russia might not
achieve its goal of launching a prototype by 2025. But that has more to do with
the country's financial situation (not great) than the technical challenges of a
nuclear engine."

See:

http://www.wired.com/2016/03/russia-...n-find-rubles/

Russia, with China, India and Brazil, will finance this using their own credit capacity.

They certainly have the financial capacity to do so. I doubt very much
they have the political will.


Alain Fournier

Only if the scientists and engineers are in charge.

RUSSIA: Since Putin was KGB, its all smoke and mirrors with him. He sold protection in his apartment block when he was young. He came to the notice of the KGB then. Rose to the top ranks. Got elected by being hard on terrorism. Terrorism he helped organise with those closest to him. Real terrorists got out of control while he was monkeying around with that. But, he got in office. This all was reported by the opposition, until he arrested the opposition, many who died in custody. Some had accidents. Sounds familiar. Putin would be a good mayor of Chicago in the 1930s. He'd clean up the town, and give out turkeys on Thanksgiving and hold the best Christmas parades, while leading the congregation at Church. Not into wild-eyed bull****, which he'd classify this as.

Though, on a good day, he might be persuaded to support this, if he trusted the people involved to actually do it. Provided he can make Russia more powerful, and make a buck for him and his country, in that order. He will leave the folks doing the magic with the scraps though, as long as they don't criticise him. The problem here, is that they'll end up with maybe a dime out of every dollar going to real honest go God work, about 30 cents going to overhead to justify some damn bureacracy in power, and 60 cents going to friends of Putin and Putin. Can they afford it? I think you can make a case, but it a lot harder with all the dross.

By the way, replace Putin with LBJ (who killed his sister because she was a political liability, nice guy) and you get about the same break down of NASA spending from '63 through '68. Just Google NASA scandal and see how much its changed since then.

CHINA: Xi Jinping, China's present leader majored in Marxist theory and ideological education. Read Marxist propaganda techniques - which borrow heavly from Edward Bernays. Look it up.

He minored in chemical engineering at Qinghua University. This is comforting, he knows and respects science. Maybe even knows the periodic table and about valences.

He got a post-graduate law degree. That's interesting until you realise its in Marxist law. An extention of the ideological education in which he majored earlier. That ideological education should be thought of as re-education. The chemical engineering degree is inspiring perhaps. Hmm..

What's his carreer? Well, he's currently Secretary-General of China's Communist Party, Politburo Standing Committee Member since 2007. Chair of the Central Military Commission before that.

So, I get the picture that he's a strong military leader with an ability to spin his stories to get as much popular support as possible. Think of the fellow in Vietnam assigned the task to make the Gulf of Tonkin look bad enough to get Congress to vote funds for the War Powers Act, and then cook up bogus stories of North Vietnamese torture to counteract reports of Operation Phoenix leaking out in 1972.

http://concisepolitics.com/2014/10/0...sisl-to-today/

That's the image I get of that guy. Is he a Marxist ideologue, or in it for the power and money? He would support this project for the glory of China and to embarass the USA. That would appeal. Again, if he trusted the folks in charge to actually deliver on a brand new world ruled over by Marixst programmed self replicating nuclear powered AI, that would appeal. Would they be as corrupt as Chicago? Well, you might recall that Mao Tse Tung sold cigarettes before he started the revolution, just like Teddy Roosevelt's grand dad sold Opium for the British back in the day. So, you've got all that going on in the background.

INDIA: Narendra Modi - Indian Prime Minister. Like Nixon he's the son of a grocer and was part of the oil-presser community. Which is classified as a 'backward class'. Again very much like Nixon! Just as Nixon promoted HMOs to benefit a long list of friends who were ready to set up HMOs, Modi awards contracts and licensing for electricity and limestone mining to benefit HIS friends. I'd appeal to Modi's ego a little. He could be the one to bring Indian science to the forefront etc., etc. Again, he'd have to trust the folks who promoted the idea, that they wouldn't embarass him, and they'd get the job done. It would likely help if the scientists involved were high caste and very deferential. Beyond that, he'd need to see his friends benefit from the contracts involved. Some dross, but not as much as Russia or the USA, but more than China I'd wager, and then there's the issue of quality control, which they're at about 1950s Japan at the present moment, but their rate of improvement is higher than Japan was then, so depending on how critical their portion was, it might add time to the project, as well as cost.

Here's a photo of Presscott Bush and Richard Nixon on his becoming a State Representative in California back in 1946, after doing some shady deals in the Office of Price Administration favouring the Bush oil holdings in California following the war. That's Jack Rubenstein on Nixon's right, before he moved to Dallas and opened a night club!

http://s61.photobucket.com/user/Tikt...nixon.jpg.html

BRAZIL: Dilma Rousseff, President. The daughter of a Bulgarian entrepreneur, Rousseff was raised in an upper middle class household in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais. Grand daughter of a Nobel Prize nominee and defector from Bulgaria. So, she's pretty bright. Given her background she became a socialist during her youth, and following the 1964 coup d'état joined various left-wing and Marxist urban guerrilla groups that fought against the military dictatorship that ruled Brazil. Rousseff was eventually captured and was jailed between 1970 and 1972, during which time she was tortured. Just as the CIA had MK-ULTRA mind control operating in the USA, along with Operation MONGOOSE, the CIA has also perfected torture as mind control. Dilma was very bright and capable at anything she put her mind to. So, it was important to get control of that resource.

After her release, Rousseff rebuilt her life in Porto Alegre with Carlos Araújo, who would be her partner for 30 years. Carlos is likely her controller. Both founded the Democratic Labour Party (PDT) in Rio Grande do Sul, participating in several of the party's electoral campaigns. She became the Secretary of the Treasury of the City of Porto Alegre in the Alceu Collares Administration, and later the Secretary of Energy of the State of Rio Grande do Sul under both the Collares and Olívio Dutra Administrations. In 2000, after an internal dispute in the Dutra cabinet, she left the PDT and joined the Workers' Party (PT).

The Brazilian president has basically done whatever the banking class in Brazil has suggested she do. As a result she face impeachment for corruption benefitting the powerful families in Brazil as public anger rises over corruption, inflation and unemployment.

If she were convinced that the people offering a solution could actually deliver on their promises, and make a clear connection to a better future and jobs in Brazil, while distracting people away from their current anger, then she could be convinced. Unfortunately, you'd have to get her away from her handler, and husband, since there's no way to convince him! Do that, and she'd face assassination.

So this is a snapshot of the melieu facing any forward thinking engineering or scientific team in the early part of the 21st century.

How can scientists and engineers persuade, or overcome, people like this imbedded in a political system like this? It makes you respect all the more, the people who actually got things done doesn't it?

Now, vonBraun cut his teeth in NAZI Germany, so he was ready for the USA's mix of politics and business. Unfortunately, while he could persuade an ideologue like JFK as he did Hitler, he couldn't persuade a corrupt power hungry politician like LBJ, or Nixon, who were less imaginative and more focused on narrow interest.

Eisenhower would have supported the programs offered by von Braun if he were British or French. Eisenhower openly complained that he fought 'those damn NAZI *******'s on the ground' in World War 2, so, never trusted vonBraun enough to be persuaded to do anything he wanted. Quite the opposite! Which is why the Soviets beat the US to orbit.

Even scientists as respected as Einstein, couldn't persuade politicians of anything. They always came across as fuzzy minded and unfocused. Sure, Einstein wrote a timid letter about atomic bombs that got the Manhattan project started, but it was one of his students, Leo Szilard, that pushed it through, using political connections he had with folks like Meyer Lansky. Leo Szilard wrote the addenda that outlined the program he was later to help organise under special order from FDR. After the war, Szilard and Lewis Strauss, were marginalised, Einstein and Fermi died all by 1955. So, all the post-war hopium for atomic energy ended then since 'too cheap to meter' ran counter to the oil oligarchy's interest.

Szilard was tapped by Eisenhower though, and later by JFK, as a good resource. Szilard died and Oppenheimer got cancer shortly after the JFK killing as LBJ pulled the plug on NERVA and Orion.

This didn't stop other national leaders from turning to wide eyed enthusiasts however!

Yet even their path is instructive!

Lutz T. Kayser chased down Libya's Gadaffi and convince him to fund OTRAG from 1975 to 1987. Otrag clustered large numbers of low-cost storable liquid rocket modules and claimed to reduce costs by 10x.

It was tested in Congo and Libya, but project killed by negative attention from the Mossad and elements of CIA and NATO intelligence, since they didn't think Libya having the ability to send payloads into space or to any point on Earth in 40 minutes, was a good idea. So, these intelligence agencies exercised their folks behind the scenes to get the Libyan military to sieze OTRAG assets on the one hand, and use other folks Kayser trusted to convince him to back out of the programme, ending it.

Yet, Kayser was no slouch! His first major development was a bipropellant satellite attitude control systems which he later sold to North American Rocketdyne and the US Air Force Rocket Propulsion Laboratory, Edwards AF Base..

Kayser also collaborated with the Rocket Engine Division of the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center in connection with the Saturn-IB clustered engine concept.

Kayser developed the first ablative combustion chamber for the H-1 engine, later tested in firings at Huntsville. This was a first step towards his concept of parallel clustering of low-cost ablative engine - a key feature of OTRAG.

Further work on the idea was supported by von Braun and jointly financed by NASA and the German Ministry of Scientific Research.

Kayser founded Technologieforschung GmbH (TF) as a commercial spin-off to handle these and other contracts.

Kayser invented, developed, and tested the TIROC rocket engine (Tangential Injection and Rotational Combustion). It was the world's smallest thruster burning Monomethylhydrazine and Nitrogen tetroxide efficiently.

The tiny engine delivered 1 newton thrust (0.2 lbf) with a minimum burning time of 1 milliseconds and a demonstrated maximum burning time of 1 million seconds (11 days). The valves had response times of under 1 millisecond and were capable of more than 1 million cycles at a 6 sigma confidence level.

Patents for these are a wealth of information for folks like me who are building very tiny engine arrays. Although I use only trifling amounts of monomethylhydrazine and Nitrogen tetroxide, as a sort of spark plug or pilot light for starting up a cryogenic engine, but I digress.

Kayser also developed one of the first capillary action gas-liquid separation systems. This guaranteed positive liquid flow from propellant tanks to the rocket engines in zero-gravity. Future applications were high performance satellite and space vehicle attitude control systems. The application to MEMS systems is obvious.

The first pan-European launch vehicle program was the European Launcher Development Organization's Europa I of the 1960s. This medium lift vehicle consisted of a British first stage (Blue Streak), a French second stage (Veronique), and a German third stage.

Several attempts of the new rocket failed. The German Government asked Kayser to investigate. Explosions always occurred shortly after cutoff of the French second stage and before ignition of the German third stage. Kayser solved the problem, by developing the world's first finite element computation method for solution of statics and dynamics of structures. Using this tool he identified thrust oscillations of the second stage rocket engine during cut-off destroyed the intertank bulkhead of the third stage which in turn hypergolically ignited the liquid propellants in the third stage which exploded.

Kayser's received German Government contracts to study and analyse NASA's proposed Space Shuttle project before committing to it. It soon became clear to Kayser that during the first two years of development too many conflicting US Government requirements were incorporated into the design. He also found that industry desires to sell their respective technologies forced incompatible features together. Solid propellant boosters increased cost. Wings twice as large as necessary for NASA made the delta-winged shuttle orbiter less safe than a lifting body design.

Based on Kayser's recommendation the German Government stopped participation in that program. It took NASA 25 years to reach the same conclusion as Kayser - that the Space Shuttle was inherently flawed and needed a successor as soon as possible.

It was clear that governments had a hard time finding researchers and engineers for impartial assessment of large, expensive and long term space projects. Analysis of such large systems required a very wide knowledge of all scientific fields with decades of experience and an independent view. Kayser had these abilities and as a result became a consultant to NASA, DARPA, USAF, and NRO in formulating future US space programs.

In the early 1970's Willy Brandt's Ministry of Science and Technology solicited a contract for demonstration of launch vehicle technology an order of magnitude cheaper and more reliable than existing launchers. Kayser's research company TF won the contract and developed a radically new rocket technology, making more than 20 inventions in the process.

Kayser's concept involved the parallel clustering of large numbers of identical propellant tank and rocket engine modules. This allowed the application of mass production techniques as used in the automobile industry. This in turn resulted in cost reduction by a factor of 10. This breakthrough and the static testing in of prototype modules at Lampoldshausen stirred concern in the competitive aerospace industry. The established space launch companies were accustomed to making easy guaranteed profits through high cost plus fixed fee government contracts.

In order to exploit this low-cost rocket technology on a commercial basis Kayser founded OTRAG (Orbital Transport und Raketen AG). It was the world's first commercial launcher development, production and launch company.

Wernher von Braun and Kurt Debus, the leading managers of American rocketry, were so enthusiastic about the project that they joined the team after their retirement from NASA. Their contribution was important and helped to introduce lessons learned from earlier programs. Von Braun introduced the concept of parallel clustering of tanks and engines with his Saturn I design and had shown the way towards the low-cost breakthrough 20 years earlier.

However, both rocket pioneers were in doubt whether this technology should be flight tested in developing countries because of the possibility that it would be misused for weapons. Kayser optimistically hoped he would be able to limit the technology to commercial satellite launchings.

International controversy erupted when Kayser conducted suborbital test flights from launch ranges in the Congo and Libya. 14 suborbital test flights proved the concept and led to a 100% qualification of the technology and the verified the extremely low production cost.

Soviet president Brezhnev and French president Giscard d'Estaing applied heavy political pressure on the German government to stop the project. After a total investment of $ 150 million, OTRAG had to terminate production in Germany. Production was relocated to the launch site in Libya. This in turn led to Libyan military circles eyeing the facilities as a means of obtaining military rocket technology.

OTRAG's production and launch range equipment were illegally confiscated, after being stirred up by moles put in Libya's military by the Mossad. Siezure of assets had happened to the foreign oil industry a decade earlier.

All attempts by Kayser to solve the problem were futile. Without Kayser's know-how the Libyans were able to conduct only a few test launches with the stolen equipment. After ten years of desultory testing the Libyan program came to an end under steady NATO, USA and Israeli pressure.

As of 2005, Kayser was actively searching for partners to fund an OTRAG production facility in the United States and to apply his unique low-cost technology to the requirements of the future American space program. He founded von Braun Debus Kayser Rocket Science LLC to transfer OTRAG's intellectual property and know-how to the United States. Kayser, along with newer private entrepreneurs such as Musk, Rutan, and Bezos, still dream of achieving the goal of affordable space transport below $ 1,000 per pound into orbit.

Musk, has taken the IP of TRWs pintle fed engine, and Kayser's ideas and innovations, and produced a very efficient rocket system for SpaceX.

The nuclear side of the equation is a little harder to decipher given the degree nuclear information is even more highly controlled than rocket information. Yet, they face similar challenges going forward as well.

Even so, the only way for Russia, China, India or Brazil, to break out of the stranglehold dominance of SpaceX in the coming years will have, is to do something either using MEMS arrays on a scale that hasn't been done before, or using nuclear pulse based on tiny aneutronic systems, like that described earlier.

* * *

Consider a sphere 1.5 meters in diameter with a 957 mm diameter sphere inside, connected at a common point through a bulkhead with MEMS engine array. The inner sphere contains 523.4 kg of LOX and the outer sphere contains 95..2 kg of LH2. The empty sphere with MEMS engine array, and a host of other micro hardware, masses 26.9 kg. The engine produces an exhaust velocity 4..2 km/sec at sea level and 4.5 km/sec in vacuum. It produces 15.83 kN of thrust, throttlable back to 158.3 Newtons. The tanks interconnect in a way that permits them to feed propellant to any attached tank, forming a hexagonal close packed array.

So imagine 11 tanks stacked like oranges

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphere...CP_Oranges.jpg

The top orange, contains the payload. The three oranges it sits on constitute the upper stages. The seven oranges that sits on constitute the booster stages.

These cost $70,000 each.

This tiny system can put 785 kg (1727 lbs) into LEO with the stages thrown away. $1,000 per kg. With recovery of the system, 100x, the cost is $10 per kg.

Using a cylindrical system with ogive nosecone, we have a 765 mm diameter rocket that's 4.6 meters long. 7 of them forming the first layer, and 3 of them the second layer, and a third forming a third layer. The volumes and masses are the same. The walls are a bit thinner. The air drag is considerably less. The system is over 18 m tall instead of less than 4 m tall as spheres.

http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/12/mic...lsion-and.html

On Monday, March 14, 2016 at 1:56:24 AM UTC+13, Alain Fournier wrote:
On Mar/13/2016 4:32 AM, William Mook wrote :
On Saturday, March 12, 2016 at 12:26:18 PM UTC+13, wrote:
"The Russians think they can do better. Last week, their national nuclear
corporation Rosatom announced it is building a nuclear engine that will reach
Mars in a month and a half--with fuel to burn for the trip home. Russia might not
achieve its goal of launching a prototype by 2025. But that has more to do with
the country's financial situation (not great) than the technical challenges of a
nuclear engine."

See:

http://www.wired.com/2016/03/russia-...n-find-rubles/

Russia, with China, India and Brazil, will finance this using their own credit capacity.

They certainly have the financial capacity to do so. I doubt very much
they have the political will.


Alain Fournier

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vs3zNwXhzSA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYoLcJuBtOw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieYsxEe8pkQ

Advances in technology change the cost of things. For example, 3D printing is more capable than machine shop approaches. Similarly, swarms of robots that self assemble patterns are more capable than 3D printing. These things radically change program costs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMPXu6GF18M

So, the question is, what's the smallest cleanest nuclear explosion we know about? The answer is aneutronic fusion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZaU5ZtDdY8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dy0kHQASsX8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-X8eDImVmY

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal...ture03575.html

There are fusion reactions that have no neutrons as products. Those with the largest cross sections are these:

Deuterium–helium-3 fusion 2D + 3He → 4He + 1p + 18.3 MeV
Deuterium–lithium-6 fusion 2D + 6Li → 2 4He + 22.4 MeV
Proton–lithium-6 fusion---- 1p + 6Li → 4He + 3He + 4.0 MeV
Helium-3–lithium fusion---- 3He + 6Li → 2 4He + 1p + 16.9 MeV
Helium-3-helium-3 fusion- 3He + 3He → 4He + 2 1p + 12.86 MeV
Proton–lithium-7 fusion---- 1p + 7Li → 2 4He + 17.2 MeV
Proton–boron fusion------- 1p + 11B → 3 4He + 8..7 MeV
Proton–nitrogen fusion----- 1p + 15N → 12C + 4He + 5.0 MeV

Protium Lithium 7 and Protium Lithium 6 are interesting as is Protium Boron fusion. However, Deuterium Lithium-6 is of special interest because it can be sparked by a neutron;

https://cryptome.org/2014/06/wmd-4th-gen-quest.pdf

Now consider the High Flux Isotope Reactor at Oak Ridge TN.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...ified_Core.jpg

A 100 MW reactor that produces a continuous flux of neutrons at its core, can initiate a Lithium-6 Deuteride shell encasing a Protium Lithium-7 & Protium Boron core which detonates readily. The entire process takes place inside a magnetic nozzle.

http://alfven.princeton.edu/projects/MagneticNozzle.htm

This nozzle can be a large external affair, as described above, or the result of a theta pinch type reaction from a shaped micro-fusion pellet, or a hybrid combination. The lighest weight system seems to be a hybrid combination.

A properly designed system consists of an array of MEMS devices that eject shaped pellets across a propulsive skin. These pellets produce their own self-sustaining magnetic fields which are amplified and directed by patterns of conductors across the spacecraft skin. They also produce a controlled neutron flux to direct neutron beams to detonate outside the reactor core, minimising the power requirements of the initiating core.

http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/a...g/roberds.html
http://www.tldm.org/News4/DeathRayGun.htm

Russia is rumored to have a compact light weight high flux neutron beam weapon system that kills things in front of it more efficiently than things behind it. Such a weapon system in combination with neutron activated micro-fusion would give them a leg up on near term development of a fusion powered spacecraft.

The upshot is that a 200 micron diameter pellet massing 6.325 micro-grams releases 1.53 MJ of energy with the alpha particles ejected from the surface at a speed of 22,000 km/sec. A 1,000 ton spacecraft with a thrust of 19.6 megaNewtons consumes 891 grams per second of pellets. That's 142.9 million pellets per second. 218.6 TW of jet energy! Of course, lower in the atmosphere of Earth, you can entrain the surrounding atmosphere to radically reduce power level to maintain lift, raising power levels as you exit into space.


A crew of 30 with 8 staterooms for 16 guests, would be a rather special experience. The ship flies at 1/10th gee between worlds, and can pull up to four gees in a pinch. At normal cruise, and with 300 tons of fusion fuel, the ship can operate for 92 days at 1/10th gee. The ship can go out to 26.47 AU and return. That's out to Neptune and back! It will take 8 days at 1/10th gee to get to Mars from Earth at the present moment.

01 April 2016
78.28 million miles distant
right ascension | 16^h 21^m 52.7^s
declination---- | -20° 36' 27.9"
Constellation--: Scorpius

At full thrust this engine produces over 10x the energy currently produced by humanity today! Imagine two of these engines pointing in opposite direction at 1/10th gee generating energy for a power beaming satellite capable of generating up to 20 TW of beamed energy. Imagine three of these as satellites flying to geosynchronous orbit beaming up to 60 TW of power to Earth.. Receivers on the ground receive energy and produce power for the electrical grid surrounding the receiver. They also convert atmospheric CO2 into CH4 and sell it. They also convert CH4 to methanol, and petrol, and sell that. In this way, those who build. This uses a ton per hour, and operates a month between refuelings. So, four systems are built, and three launched with a fourth refueling each on a regular basis.

fusion -- MHD --- fusion pumped laser -- Holography -- Beamed power --- AC Power & Fuel

60 TW is 4x the present rate of energy consumption on the planet, and represents a huge transformation in affairs on Earth. At $0.03 per kWh or $1 per US gallon - generates $15.7 trillion per year in revenue. This has a value of $211.1 trillion and when leveraged through a banking system as sound as the US Federal Reserve with 53 to 1 leverage (prior to the 2008 fiasco) suppoprts $11.1 quadrillion in loan activity. The construction 18 engines, with eight going to four power beaming systems, and ten going to ten interplanetary cruisers, would allow Russia to dominate the imagination of humanity along with the banking and military possibilities of humanity going forward.

1,000 tons is 8x the capacity of the C5 aircraft. Five suborbital ships capable of sending 3,600 troops each, with hardware anywhere in the world in minutes, backed up with 60 TW of laser beam energy for area defence, provides a compelling capacity to project overwhelming military force anywhere on Earth.

Five interplanetary ships that explore the solar system transforms humanity's relationship with the cosmos. 1,000 ton capacity quickly permits erecting and maintaining bases on the Moon and mars, as well as outposts throughout the solar system.

Accelerating at 1m per second per second above local gravity means a ship rising directly to the moon or any other point in the sky would achieve sound speed at 340 seconds. So that's an altitude of 57.8 km. Max Q is rather low. At 1/10 gee it takes about 11 hours to get to the moon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JG94OgopDB0

Show me to a higher place
Take me to outer space
I want you to be my friend
We'll make it till the world ends

Show me to a higher place
Take me to outer space
I want you to be my friend
We'll make it till the world ends

Don't give me love
Governed by life
Limited by
These worldy heights
I want a love
That the universe
Can never stop
Can never hurt
I want a love that will last
After this world is our past
A love that no time could erase
A love in a higher place

Show me to a higher place
Take me to outer space
I want you to be my friend
We'll make it till the world ends

Show me to a higher place
Take me to outer space
I want you to be my friend
We'll make it till the world ends

Don't sell me short
(Don't sell me short)
On unconditional
(On unconditional)
I want a love
Beyond what we all know
Whoooooooo
I want a love that will last
After this world is our past
A love that no time could erase
A love in a higher place

Show me to a higher place
Take me to outer space
I want you to be my friend
We'll make it till the world ends

Show me to a higher place
Take me to outer space
I want you to be my friend
We'll make it till the world ends

Show me to a higher place
Take me to outer space
I want you to be my friend
We'll make it till the world ends

On Saturday, March 12, 2016 at 12:26:18 PM UTC+13, wrote:
"The Russians think they can do better. Last week, their national nuclear
corporation Rosatom announced it is building a nuclear engine that will reach
Mars in a month and a half--with fuel to burn for the trip home. Russia might not
achieve its goal of launching a prototype by 2025. But that has more to do with
the country's financial situation (not great) than the technical challenges of a
nuclear engine."

See:

http://www.wired.com/2016/03/russia-...n-find-rubles/

Friday 15 April 2016 - Mars location is RA: 16h 28m 50.4s Dec: 21d 15' 43.8" Distance: 0.6816 AU Near Saturn, in the constellation Ophiucus.

0.6816 AU = 102,010,788,030.33 meters. 45 days is 3,888,000 seconds.

D = 1/2 * a * t^2

We know D and t so can compute a

2 * D / t^2 = a

So, accelerating half way for half the time or 1,944,000 seconds and slowing the other half in similar fashion we obtain 0.00675 m/s2 which is a very low acceleration. The top speed is v = a*t is 13.1 km/sec. Delta Vee is 26.2 km/sec. Total delta vee out and back is 52.4 km/sec.

WIth an exhaust speed of 120 km/sec we have 0.3538 propellant fraction. So, for each ton sent to Mars and back this way, requires 353.8 kg of propellant. 353.8 kg ejected at 120 km/sec requires 2,548 TJ. Divided by 2x 3,880,000 seconds obtains 328,360 Watts average power..

On Friday, April 15, 2016 at 8:45:11 AM UTC+12, William Mook wrote:
On Saturday, March 12, 2016 at 12:26:18 PM UTC+13, wrote:
"The Russians think they can do better. Last week, their national nuclear
corporation Rosatom announced it is building a nuclear engine that will reach
Mars in a month and a half--with fuel to burn for the trip home. Russia might not
achieve its goal of launching a prototype by 2025. But that has more to do with
the country's financial situation (not great) than the technical challenges of a
nuclear engine."

See:

http://www.wired.com/2016/03/russia-...n-find-rubles/

Friday 15 April 2016 - Mars location is RA: 16h 28m 50.4s Dec: 21d 15' 43.8" Distance: 0.6816 AU Near Saturn, in the constellation Ophiucus.

0.6816 AU = 102,010,788,030.33 meters. 45 days is 3,888,000 seconds.

D = 1/2 * a * t^2

We know D and t so can compute a

2 * D / t^2 = a

So, accelerating half way for half the time or 1,944,000 seconds and slowing the other half in similar fashion we obtain 0.00675 m/s2 which is a very low acceleration. The top speed is v = a*t is 13.1 km/sec. Delta Vee is 26.2 km/sec. Total delta vee out and back is 52.4 km/sec.

WIth an exhaust speed of 120 km/sec we have 0.3538 propellant fraction. So, for each ton sent to Mars and back this way, requires 353.8 kg of propellant. 353.8 kg ejected at 120 km/sec requires 2,548 TJ. Divided by 2x 3,880,000 seconds obtains 328,360 Watts average power..

per ton...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wIXZsbjIxA
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1967SSRv....7..795S

A 60 ton ship requires 20 MW.

With higher specific power, we have a shorter period of time - instead of 13 months and 6 days - we have 45 days each way.

At 22 kW/kg (as opposed to 0.1 kW/kg in 1980) we can match the performance of the proposed Russian ship, and exceed Sthulinger's ship, replacing the radiator area with solar collector area.