Russia Develops Spaceship With Nuclear Engine 297
Matt_dk writes "The Russian Federal Space Agency Roscosmos has developed a design for a piloted spacecraft powered by a nuclear engine, the head of the agency said on Wednesday. 'The project is aimed at implementing large-scale space exploration programs,' Anatoly Perminov said at a meeting of the commission on the modernization of the Russian economy. He added that the development of Megawatt-class nuclear space power systems (MCNSPS) for manned spacecraft was crucial for Russia if the country wanted to maintain a competitive edge in the space race, including the exploration of the Moon and Mars."
Nuclear pulse propulsion (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Sure Russia may not be able to afford it (Score:3, Informative)
um.. russia has a debt of 6.5% of gdp and in 2008 ran a 60 billion dollar (~20%) budget surplus.
The US by contrast has a public debt of about 60% of gdp and in 2008 ran a budget deficit of 400 billion dollars (~20 of budget).
Not disputing that china has the money, but the russians have money to spend. Where the US is struggling to balance the books, the books are a lot bigger admittedly, the red portion is correspondingly bigger. If anything the russians are in the sort of position to try stuff like this. They're trying to change from an economy that lives on oil back to an industrial and services economy, which gives the room to manouvre, the US is trying to cling to the industrial and services economy it has, which is much harder to transform to a different set of industries and services.
Re:They haven't "developed" anything (Score:5, Informative)
Check out this book: http://books.google.com.au/books?id=zmpxV1ygjvsC [google.com.au]
One of the best collected references on the nuclear thermal rocket propulsion development program that I've ever read.. and almost all the pages are available online.
Re:Soviets may have already done part of the job (Score:4, Informative)
The Soviets were a lot more willing to shove nuclear reactors in places we were politically unwilling/unable to. The Russians may even have some Soviet prototypes around. It would be the same barely-post-war era tech all their stuff was, and it would be really, really, REALLY dangerous to use, but the very well might have gotten beyond blueprints.
As a matter of fact, the Soviets had a large number of nuclear reactors on satellites satellites (actual nuclear fission reactors, not radioisotope generators):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RORSAT [wikipedia.org]
http://www.astronautix.com/craft/usa.htm [astronautix.com]
A number of them broke down and crashed back down to Earth, including one which crashed into Canada in 1978 and spread a decent amount of radioactive debris. Their nuclear-powered RORSAT series unfortunately also "had the lowest reliability and most quality problems of any Soviet space system."
Re:Nuclear pulse propulsion (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Boom (Score:3, Informative)
Isn't this dangerous? (Score:1, Informative)
On the history channel they had a show that mentioned that a nuclear explosion at the edge of our atmosphere would be a lot worse than an explosion on the ground (eg: hiroshima) because the radioactive fallout would orbit the world and drop over a much larger area. Isn't this a concern?
Re:The space race isn't over... (Score:5, Informative)
Well, satellites with nuclear reactors haven't always [wikipedia.org] managed to keep from releasing significant amounts of radiation onto earth. The concerns might be overblown, but as far as I can tell, most scientists do consider the problem of designing nuclear reactors for launch such that they won't leak radiation in a disaster a fairly significant one. It's even been cited [amazon.com] (pp. 39-41) as a major motivator for research into fusion-powered spacecraft propulsion, since fusion can in principle achieve similar acceleration characteristics without having to worry about disaster-proofing a payload of radioactive material. (The downside is that we can build lots of fission-powered things today, practically, but not so for fusion-powered things.)
Re:The space race isn't over... (Score:5, Informative)
Well, actually
"Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down
That's not my department," says Wernher von Braun
Don't get excited yet. (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Hey! (Score:5, Informative)
But who cares about Canada anyway.
Hey! Canada's not a joke, Eh!
Fixed that for you.
Fixed that fix for you, Eh never starts the sentence up here, it ends it. For starting we use "Hey" just like you do down south of the line
Re:Hey! (Score:3, Informative)
Eh! Canada's not a joke!
You fail at Canadian colloquialism.
Eh != Hey.
Philistine.
Re:Don't get excited yet. (Score:4, Informative)
NASA designed one, called NERVA, it was built and tested, out in Idaho IIRC, and was canceled by the Nixon administration. The photo in the article looks very much like a nuclear thermal engine, and nothing like a pulse system.
Re:Isn't this dangerous? (Score:3, Informative)
It's more to do with the EMP burst, it's much more effective at high altiudes/low orbit. If I recall correctly the US once accidentally knocked out just about every electronic device in Hawaii and the surrounding area while testing nukes in space. That and you end up dumping a whole lot of radiation into the van allen belts which isn't so great for space travel.
Re:interesting juxtaposition (Score:5, Informative)
NASA massive?
Social Security is massive.
The military is massive.
Medicare is massive.
Welfare is massive.
Medicaid is massive.
The "War on Terror" is massive.
Department of Health and Human Services isn't so massive, but it's larger than NASA's budget by a factor of four.
Department of Education? bigger than NASA.
Discretionary spending? yep, bigger than NASA.
VA? You might be starting to see a pattern - yes, it's bigger than NASA.
HUD? ditto.
State Department and Foreign Aid? bigger than NASA.
Department of Homeland Security? Still bigger than NASA.
This isn't a conclusive listing of all the things in the Federal Budget that are larger than NASA. What is actually is is a list of all the things in the Federal Budget that would still be bigger than NASA if we doubled NASA's budget.
Re:The space race isn't over... (Score:3, Informative)
The problem with that Wikipedia article is that a nuclear reactor usually means a fission reactor, and not nuclear batteries which are rather common in satellites.
No Nozzle, a power plant not engine (Score:3, Informative)
Just wanted to mention, it doesn't look like an "engine" (something that produces thrust as opposed to power). In the photo, there is just a collection of tubes where the very large nozzle (nozzles for use in space as opposed to the atmosphere are larger due to the greater expansion of the exhaust gasses) should be. Also there is no massive turbo-pump, fuel feed system needed even on a regeneratively cooled engine (and nozzle).
The fact that the head of the Russian space agency talks about "the development of Megawatt-class nuclear space *power* systems (MCNSPS) for manned spacecraft was crucial for Russia" (my asterisks) further implies that they are in fact designing power systems (for electric propulsion like ion drives) rather than thermal nuclear engines. I have never heard of any Russian program matching the NASA NERVA program, so I would be quite surprised if this was an announcement of them continuing such an effort.
Fact Erosion and Replacement (Score:5, Informative)
Headline: Russia Develops
Subline: has developed a design
Article text: the draft design would be finalized by 2012
Translation: we're drawing stuff. we're going to draw more stuff
FACT: The picture is of an RD-410, a 7 tonne thrust nuclear thermal/LH2, developed by Glushko for the N-1 during 1960-61 under Korolev. It was abandoned in 1963 when Korolev chose nuclear/ion as a preferable technology, and Glushko dropped it in favor of the gas core reactor design.
Except for a few motors (mainly Glushko's) intended for the N-1 and some early nuclear thermal/ammonia long range missiles, Russia's nuclear motors have been intended for Mars missions. The designs were all fair to good, the planning rational. However, during the first decade of design funding was increasingly, then entirely, diverted to Korolev's N-1 booster, counterpart to the Saturn V, on which Soviet moon race hopes were pinned. After the 3 July 1969 explosion of the N-1, funding became scarce for all design work. In the 1 Sept 1969 post mortem report for the Soviet space program, Kamanin lists among the mistakes Korolev and Mishin's rejections of Glushko's motors.
Since relinquishing the moon landing, all Russian nuclear motors have been intended for Mars flights. However, since the US canceled the NERVA and thus its Mars plans in 1972, there was no pressure for Russia to produce and funding was rare. Still, a few were built and tested. After 12 years of testing the official proposal was put forth to develop the RD-0140, a 3.5 tonne version of Glushko's original design, as well as a 70 tonne RD-0411. Two years later there was no longer any Soviet Union. But Glushko's design survived even this, and in 1994 no less than 3 designs emerged from Kuchatov (one) and Keldysh (two) institutes, for Mars craft using 3 or 4 of the RD-0410, for a 460 day round trip.
There have been no Glushko motors built in over 20 years, but there could be. And obviously no Mars mission craft are being built. Designs and plans that persist for 50 years are rare in space exploration. There's little evidence to say whether yet another redesign by Ruskosmos is just another flag waving ritual by a home team that refuses to give up, or whether Glushko's creations have taken on a life of their own, and are simply successes waiting for their time. In any case, present 'development' is restricted to speculative design/redesign, yet more pictures on paper, hoping to become proposals.
Re:The space race isn't over.. same with cold war. (Score:2, Informative)
Obviously, there's people thinking only in we vs. them, nuke this and nuke that. Probably nothing unusual as country is at (constant) war with somebody. After a while it probably becomes state of (united?) mind.
As for article, it's poor. No dimensions, no comparisons, nothing about size and power of current reactors used in ships and submarines. No expected speeds/ranges/whatever, just some blurb on Moon|Mars bases - as if bases have anything to do with ohw exactly same solar system "colony ships" for are powered.
Pity.
United States Intelligence Drain..... (Score:3, Informative)
Ya know, if it wasn't for the Eco-Nazis that squash technological developments like this, the U.S. could have started developing these A LONG TIME AGO.
Unfortunately, we have castrated ourselves in sole favor of "environmeltally freindly" technologies.
Eco-Nazis, coupled with the severe Dumbing-Down of U.S. education, especially in the fields of physics, biology, mechanics, and electrical engineering, pose the biggest threat to the future of the United States as a hotbed of technological development.
Next thing you know, other countries will be developing spacecraft with advanced technologies, while we will pioneer the development of a patchouli-and-love-powered VW microbus.
Yes, I know that sounds terribly cynical, but the state of American education is terrible: We give English tests in other languages, encourage kids to fiddle with their iPhones and video games, and place more value on extra-curricular activities than actual academics. The BEST after-school program is an academic one.
For example, the piss-poor university that I have to go to (unless I want to go broke attending school in either San Francisco or the L.A. area), CSU Monterey Bay, cuts academic classes like Biology, Chemistry, and Psychology, and claims 'budget concerns' and 'classroom space' as the reason. YET, they can still offer Yoga, Dance, and plenty of other academically meaningless classes.
If we cut out all the CRAP in American schools, and offered academically important courses instead, budget concerns would be less of a problem, and students would spend their time learning things that can be used to develop important technologies, ranging from reducing environmental impact to advanced materials and systems, and space travel.
Re:The space WHAT? (Score:5, Informative)
Hogwash. The US may has been dicking around, but others haven't. Your comment typifies everything wrong with the typical US attitude to space exploration.
The Russians were in space almost continuously from 1971 onwards--from Salyut, through to Mir and then the ISS--running manned missions and supply flights almost continuously until the present. The only pause in the Russian program was a couple years between the time Mir came down and the first ISS module was put up (again, the Russians).
From 1971-present the US couldn't put a man in space for years over several periods: after Skylab; after Challenger; after Columbia. Meanwhile, the Russians continued to grind along, slowly but surely, providing both manned and unmanned supply flights. Those Progress and Soyuz flights that helped keep the ISS alive? Those were from Russia, using proficiences they developed during the 20+ years *regularly* servicing Salyut and Mir and maintaining a manned presence in space.
Check the total time in orbit for the Salyut and Mir, days inhabited, and the number of missions--it's pretty damned impressive. And that was long before the ISS or the Shuttle.
They weren't "dicking around". They were doing serious science on long-term manned missions, and what it takes to sustain an effort, especially from an operational/practical perspective. It's no accident that a lot of the practical ISS LS systems are based on what the Russians learned and developed. NASA has refined some of those systems, but a lot of the basic tech (air revitalization, toilets, etc.) came from the Russian program.
This isn't a "race", at least if you're interested in more than flags and boots. It's learning. It's exploration not just of places, but of systems. It's engineering. It's figuring out how to make people and machinery work in environments that are hostile and for which many effects are little understood. You do that by trying, correcting, and trying again. That takes time and a sustained effort.
Re:Isn't this dangerous? (Score:3, Informative)
I believe the specific test you're referring to is Starfish Prime [wikipedia.org] which was part of the Operation Dominic test series.
/Mikael