On Mon, 24 Feb 2003, David Weinshenker wrote:
> > gas core nuclear
>
> Is there such a thing? I hear occasional
> references to such a concept, but never
> enough detail to get an actual image of
> how it would work.
Well, depends on your definition of "is". :-) It's been proposed, it's a
respectable concept, there was work done on it in the 60s and again
briefly in the 90s, but nobody's ever built one or even drawn up detailed
blueprints for one.
The idea is simply to have a nuclear reactor whose fission fuel is an
incandescent gas, with reaction mass (typically hydrogen) heated by
thermal radiation from the core gas. The big trick is maintaining a
reasonably stable blob of very hot uranium-rich gas without having it mix
with the hydrogen too much (because you don't want to lose fission fuel
out the exhaust) or melt through the walls. There are ideas on how to do
this, but no complete fully-designed fully-understood solution.
The attraction is an Isp of 3000-5000s with respectable thrust, enough
to accelerate a realistic vehicle at maybe 0.1G.
Henry Spencer
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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