Jay

Bruce Behrhorst of NuclearSpace.com recently stumbled across a new engine from everyone's favorite Jet Engine maker, Pratt & Whitney. Unlike P&W's previous engines, however, this engine is not a jet, and is powered by Nuclear Fission. It seems that P&W has responded to the need for Mars transportation by inventing the first commercially viable nuclear thermal rocket. They have heavily improved upon the NERVA NRX design from the 60's, and have even solved the graphite ablation problem! With this new engine, it seems that an inexpensive trip to Mars is now firmly within our grasp. Will we rise to the challenge?"

http://science.slashdot.org/article....0&tid=1&tid=14

Courtesy : Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_Thermal_Rocket

Two more...
http://www.space.com/businesstechnol...er_000718.html

__________________
A grain of wheat eclipsed the sun of Adam !!

Jay

PRATT & WHITNEY THERMAL NUCLEAR ROCKET ENTRY: TRITON

by

Bruce Behrhorst

System Description:
The TRITON is a Trimodal engine design capable of operating across a wide range of propulsive thermal and vehicle electrical power requirements. The baseline TRITON is designed for primary propulsion mode using Liquid Hydrogen propellant for moderate thrust levels near 66.7KN (15klbf) and Isp's greater than 900 seconds. The LOX augmented thrust mode provides gasified oxygen into the nozzle down-stream of the throat to get 200% more thrust when needed for heavy cargo Earth departure missions. In the power-generation mode a dynamic power conversion unit provides electrical power to support the spacecraft or electrical thrusters for additional maneuvering (note size comparison to human in figure below).
The baseline TRITON engine is powered by a fast-spectrum beryllium-reflected CERMET-fueled nuclear reactor. It uses a dual turbopump arrangement driven by an expander cycle using LH2 and a gas generator add-on to drive the LANTR (LOX Augmented Nuclear Thermal Rocket) When the TRITON is operating in electrical power mode , the reactor operating at less than 1% maximum thermal capability. In this sub-level thermal power mode, the reactor is used to heat a mixture of helium and xenon to drive a closed-loop power conversion cycle. The TRITON engine and power system unit concept has been analyzed relative to the design requirements for producing a range thrust from 44KN to 334KN has a wide range of electrical power generation capability ranging up to nearly 200kWe per engine. Baseline operating conditions are at 66% power per unit so that when used in pods of three and operating in "66% power mode", the total thrust to a spacecraft is near 130KN and power delivery capability is near 50kWe.

For the complete article...read here...
http://www.nuclearspace.com/A_PWrussview_FINX.htm

The Chap

Thanks for posting that.

Ever see the dirty ++ISP engine in JBIS ? Whilst it's great that ablation problems have been solved, the ISP is still not "wow". Further, there are still remaining mass fraction problems attendent.

Now you have me thinking of a clean ORION

__________________
Where's the bloody gin? An army marches on its liver, not its ruddy stomach.