Why the Reluctance to Employ Nuclear Propulsion for Interstellar Travel?

[Radrook]

Well if we are picky about where you decide to go you can drastically lower the chances of coming across things of that size... That is also one of the reasons i find nuke explosion propulsion attractive; it lets you get up into the mass range where having seriously thick and strong plates and absorbers are feasible.
Another idea is to set up laser stations along a route to pulverize and or push debris out of the way... And can also be used to help accelerate or decellerate a craft.

How does nuclear propulsion improve shock absorption?
Debris-clearance stations sounds like a good idea.

 

[Blackmarch]

How does nuclear propulsion improve shock absorption?
Debris-clearance stations sounds like a good idea.

using nuke explosions for propulsion is powerful enough that you can throw on tons of mass and still have a good acceleration.... even after using a couple heavy plate and absorption systems. it's not necessarily better in terms of less ipact, but in the sense that you have just a lot of excess power that can more than make up for something really heavy.

not so much for anything else we have access to currently.

 

[Radrook]

using nuke explosions for propulsion is powerful enough that you can throw on tons of mass and still have a good acceleration.... even after using a couple heavy plate and absorption systems. it's not necessarily better in terms of less ipact, but in the sense that you have just a lot of excess power that can more than make up for something really heavy.

not so much for anything else we have access to currently.

To be honest, given the choice between having nuclear explosions going off just a few meters away to riding on a conventional propulsion ship I would choose the latter in order not to tempt fate, which has the nasty habit of causing things to go wrong whenever it notices that I am involved in some way, from foisting another of its nasties on me.

 

[Blackmarch]

To be honest, given the choice between having nuclear explosions going off just a few meters away to riding on a conventional propulsion ship I would choose the latter in order not to tempt fate, which has the nasty habit of causing things to go wrong whenever it notices that I am involved in some way, from foisting another of its nasties on me.

Its tempting fate no matter how you choose to travel long distance in space. Six of one, half dozen of the other.

Outside of nuke explosions you can have a nuclear reactor super heat material to shoot out the back... Still not as efficient tho.

Sans any nuclear process, a combination of chemical thrust for the early stage and late braking stage, and then a combination of lightsail and ion thruster for long term acceleration (preferably with additional laser boosting). Downside is the trip takes a lot longer, and you cant carry remotely anywhere near the same mass as efficiently.

Back to nuke explosions... You make the ship long, but you try to keep the width down as much as possible (reduced cross section for directly incoming particles)... Then you have a connector/shock obsorb system that has a long length to it, so its actually hundreds of meters, and depending how wide (and shape) the pusher plate is, could be in the kilometer range for how far away the detonation is from the manned sections of the ship.

You may want to look up Project Orion if you havent already read about it.... Unfortunately the military reps decided to dress up such a spacecraft as a warship thinking that would get the presidents appeoval for funding and getting it some serious backing, however it totally backfired; kennedy had the project killed.

 

[Blackmarch]

Near future (hopefully) techs that would really bump up the power and efficiency

Fusion (super heating, also lets you do some gimmicks if youre running a ramscoop)
Metallic hydrogen (pretty much the holy grail of chemical based rockets)
-------------
Distant future techs that are plausible that would even be better;

Antimatter (probably the best thing that we can concieve ofthat we know is doable... The energy return on this immense)- need to figure out how to mass produce and safely and reliably store and handle it.

Black holes.

 

[timewerx]

Antimatter (probably the best thing that we can concieve ofthat we know is doable... The energy return on this immense)- need to figure out how to mass produce and safely and reliably store and handle it.

I agree this is probably the best (although technologically impossible atm). The top speed of a ship is related to the fuel fraction (% fuel mass against total mass of the ship) and the exhaust speed.

The exhaust speed of an "antimatter rocket" is at the speed of light (100%) since the exhaust will be high energy gamma rays. An antimatter rocket is basically a "photon rocket", albeit, extremely high energy one.

It's no surprise why many interstellar propulsion concepts use light (photons) to achieve relativistic speeds.... The only problem of photon-based propulsion systems is that they are extremely inefficient at low/non-relativistic speeds that even a chemical rocket is a lot more efficient at low speeds!

 

[Blackmarch]

I love this guy's channel on youtube, he talks about these sort of things... and is worth a listen to if this sort of stuff is interesting to you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aBOhC1c6m8

 

[Radrook]

I love this guy's channel on youtube, he talks about these sort of things... and is worth a listen to if this sort of stuff is interesting to you.

Great video. Thanx!

 

[Shemjaza]

Great video. Thanx!

I seriously recommend just going over his back catalogue. You may not always agree with his conclusions, or some of the premises he begins with, but he's not confrontational and tries to back up all his ideas.

 

[Radrook]

I seriously recommend just going over his back catalogue. You may not always agree with his conclusions, or some of the premises he begins with, but he's not confrontational and tries to back up all his ideas.

Yes, I am familiar with him and others of his videos. I recognized him because of the accent which he attributes to a speech impediment caused by an illness. True, his videos are very informative and his style of delivery is indeed not confrontational

 

[Radrook]

Near future (hopefully) techs that would really bump up the power and efficiency

Fusion (super heating, also lets you do some gimmicks if youre running a ramscoop)
Metallic hydrogen (pretty much the holy grail of chemical based rockets)
-------------
Distant future techs that are plausible that would even be better;

Antimatter (probably the best thing that we can concieve ofthat we know is doable... The energy return on this immense)- need to figure out how to mass produce and safely and reliably store and handle it.

Black holes.

The problem with anti-matter is that if your containment field malfunctions you are dead.

 

[pat34lee]

Why the Reluctance to Employ Nuclear Propulsion?

Mostly, the desire to live as long as possible.
Not many people want to die from radiation or
a nuclear explosion in space.

 

[Radrook]

Mostly, the desire to live as long as possible.
Not many people want to die from radiation or
a nuclear explosion in space.

Not many people want to die from anything at all actually.