UK Space ponders going nuclear with Rolls-Royce: Hopes are to slice the time it takes for space travel The UK Space Agency and Rolls-Royce have kicked off a study into nuclear-powered space exploration. Before anyone gets too excited, this is with a view to create a roadmap looking out to the next five to 10 years. The study will see planetary scientists pondering the impact that might be had by nuclear power sources as well …
I had a Maestro VdP with the talking digi dash. Went and handled well for the time. Much nicer to drive and better engineered than the contemporary Astra and Escort which I also have had. Hardly a reliable car though. All that 80's vintage electronics was very temperamental and together with BL production problems made the car a bit of a lemon. It was put together by people disinterested in the product in chaotic conditions using worn out tools.
Would love to have owned a fully sorted one, but the digi dash versions have all gone now unsurprisingly.
I follow the research in battery, nuclear and renewable energy technologies quite closely and it is not a lack of funds for research that is a problem. University and private labs are turning out new technology on a near daily basis, sometimes multiple research reports per day. It's trying to figure out which technologies have the best ROI in commercial use that's the problem. Tossing more money at it won't speed up progress, IMNSHO.
What's really fascinating is that there are cross-over projects between these technologies and other fields, heat transfer in chips for instance, that are working their way through the process as well. Bless the researchers as they are charging forward each and every day.
Putting those two in opposition is an extreme logical fallacy and research on renewables is fairly well-funded, but nevermind that. Exactly why would you shift resources from space exploration towards renewable energy, instead of shifting them from e.g. the military, or subsidies on entertainment (or on fossil fuels), or any of a long, long list of public monies that don't help anything that could conceivably be called "progress", and in some cases are larger than space exploration expenditure by entire orders of magnitude?
Yeah, not exactly the brightest of ideas, even though it would work, that's certain, and it would definitely reduce the number of nukes kept around, which is another positive. For real world applications, I'd suggest something along the lines of a high temperature reactor with something like asteroid or lunar soil as the reaction mass. This isn't a new idea, Bob Heinlein proposed it in "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" for a lunar tug. That way you aren't having to deal with lifting mass from earth.
Another side thought is using captured orbital debris but that probably involve negative returns aside from clearing orbital space.
Orion was conceived a long time ago, since then a lot more research into propulsion has given us some alteratives. Although for DEEP space travel it is probably something to consider (I am NOT a rocket expert) Solar power is not very useful unless you are reasonably close to the sun.
OneWeb ?? for their thousands of Space WiFi Hotspots ??
The one UK Govt dropped $USD1/2bn - without scrutiny - on the bankrupt carcass of and is now a JV with Bharti.
Will how’re not be a UKSS/HMS Brexit too as part of the founding of the Luna ‘Overseas Territory’? (Homage to The Expanse).
Nuclear salt water (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvZjhWE-3zM), which has the benefit of not ending up with a highly radioactive engine strapped to the rocket all the time (though care would have to be taken with the exhaust).
There has also been some work done on crash testing nuclear engines as part of the SNAPTRAN experiments (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mT7gAotuM-8).
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