Standing Bear wrote: <snip>
> > Good use for it. Another use may be to utilize it for rocket propulsion. > There was a government funded study that stopped short of testing > the power of this rocket. Then nothing. Probably working now and > highly classified. This just may have been the real ticket for actual > operation of the recently cancelled single stage to orbit shuttle, one of > the 'X' series, X43 or something...could look it up but some of you know > of this anyway. What we need is a good single stage to orbit shuttle. > Would'nt this be nice if it worked? A tangle of missing information and unjustified conclusions. Rowan University in New Jersey got a Phase I project from a NASA brand to investigate BLP reactioors for possible use as thrusters for deep space probes where specific impulse overlong times is of the essence. The grant was for $75,000 which was very effectively spent by the Rowan crew, including getting used high vacuum hardware on eBay. By the tiem the money ran out they had not been able to positively demonstrate high veolcity gas from the reactor by spectroscopy because of the glare from the plasma itself. A planned experiment to measure the thrust of the gas in a vacuum chamber was not completed because of lack of funds. NASA declined to find a Phase 2 program, and the project died. At the present level of applicaitons work at BLP only feeble thrust could be expected, suitable for a deep space probe where thurst with a high specific impulse operating over long periods can achieve very high velocities. Mike Carrell
