Impressed by JIMO

Although they're considering a controversial fission reactor to power it,
I'm very impressed by the design of the propulsion system for the JIMO
mission. It's a Xenon ion drive, like DS-1, except with ten times the
thrust. This is the kind of work that NASA should be doing!

John Schutkeker wrote:
Although they're considering a controversial fission reactor to power it,

Better that they use uranium for exploring icey moons than ICBMs.

I'm very impressed by the design of the propulsion system for the JIMO
mission. It's a Xenon ion drive, like DS-1, except with ten times the
thrust. This is the kind of work that NASA should be doing!



--
Hop David
http://clowder.net/hop/index.html

Hop David wrote in
:

Better that they use uranium for exploring icey moons than ICBMs.

As the resident proponent of an interstellar mission, I'm more interested
in bigger, faster plasma drives. Where they get the power is not important
to me.

Of course, I agree with your opinion, although I'm surprised that the anti-
nuke crowd hasn't been complaining about what happens if the launch
explodes. I guess space reactors are designed not to spread radiation if
the booster explodes, aren't they?

John Schutkeker writes:

Of course, I agree with your opinion, although I'm surprised that the anti-
nuke crowd hasn't been complaining about what happens if the launch
explodes. I guess space reactors are designed not to spread radiation if
the booster explodes, aren't they?

There is usually protesting when anything "nuclear" is launched by NASA.
However, such protests have fallen off considerably over the years in
terms of the number of people protesting. Also, NASA has worked very
hard to contain anything "nuclear" in containers able to withstand
launch accidents.

Jeff
--
Remove "no" and "spam" from email address to reply.
If it says "This is not spam!", it's surely a lie.

In article ,
John Schutkeker wrote:
Of course, I agree with your opinion, although I'm surprised that the anti-
nuke crowd hasn't been complaining about what happens if the launch
explodes.

Despite all the press-release hype, JIMO is a small design study for a
hypothetical future mission which might or might not ever fly. They don't
usually attract protesters at that stage.

I guess space reactors are designed not to spread radiation if
the booster explodes, aren't they?

Space reactors are not significantly radioactive at launch. A reactor
which has never gone critical has only the natural radioactivity of its
fuel, which is slight, especially for uranium. (Once it's been running
for a while, well, *that's* another story.)
--
MOST launched 30 June; science observations running | Henry Spencer
since Oct; first surprises seen; papers pending. |

John Schutkeker wrote:
Hop David wrote in
:


Better that they use uranium for exploring icey moons than ICBMs.


As the resident proponent of an interstellar mission, I'm more interested
in bigger, faster plasma drives. Where they get the power is not important
to me.

Of course, I agree with your opinion, although I'm surprised that the anti-
nuke crowd hasn't been complaining about what happens if the launch
explodes. I guess space reactors are designed not to spread radiation if
the booster explodes, aren't they?

You didn't get the joke? Or maybe it's so old that you chose to ignor it.

--
Hop David
http://clowder.net/hop/index.html

(Henry Spencer) wrote in
:

Despite all the press-release hype, JIMO is a small design study for a
hypothetical future mission which might or might not ever fly. They
don't usually attract protesters at that stage.

According to the JPL site, the ion engine has been tested, which either
makes this more than a paper study, or a general purpose engine that might
be used for other systems. Either way, it's important progress.

JIMO would be a good mission, with both interesting science and interesting
technology, but I believe that it's equally important (if not moreso) to
have larger ion drives than the existing one. That would support missions
to the outer planets, which have been neglected, as well as act as a
stepping stone for even higher capacity drives, like a trans-Pluto mission
or humans going to Mars.

Infrastructure is key!

Hop David wrote in
:

You didn't get the joke? Or maybe it's so old that you chose to ignor
it.

Sorry. That's a clever and insightful opinion. :-)

In article ,
John Schutkeker wrote:
Despite all the press-release hype, JIMO is a small design study for a
hypothetical future mission which might or might not ever fly. They
don't usually attract protesters at that stage.

According to the JPL site, the ion engine has been tested, which either
makes this more than a paper study, or a general purpose engine that might
be used for other systems.

It's a minor variant of prior hardware. JIMO is too new to have had a new
engine designed and built from scratch just for it; this is retroactive
"JIMO is the hot new project, let's stick its name on everything we do"
press-release engineering.

Note that there is no mention of anyone testing *reactor* hardware.
That's the part that's poorly developed.

Check the JIMO press releases. Look for the *money*. You'll find numbers
like "five million". That's a small design study.
--
MOST launched 30 June; science observations running | Henry Spencer
since Oct; first surprises seen; papers pending. |

Henry Spencer wrote:

Note that there is no mention of anyone testing *reactor* hardware.
That's the part that's poorly developed.

And they didn't test flight-ready power electronics either, did they?

Paul