How much solid fuel would you need to get to the moon

Telescopi said:
Ignoring the ridiculous notion of burning 'nuclear fuel' for a moment, not a great deal I'd imagine.
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so reigning down a few hundred kg of radioactive fuel over the earth isn't a problem.

one nuclear rocket explosion would be 10x Chernobyl in terms of fallout.

and we (or I wasn't) talking about burning nuclear fuel, simply using it as a method of propelling a vehicle in space.
 
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I'm not familiar with the Titan II, but i would say it's not viable anyway. No matter how well you time your burns they're never going to be perfect, and there are so many other factors that whatever model you use isn't going to account for. You need to do course corrections. And for that you need liquid, or gaseous fuel.

But anyway, lets say that liquid hydrogen has an energy density of around 142MJ/kg. Aluminium is 31MJ/kg. This doesn't take into account volume, or oxidizer, or whatever systems you need to keep the fuel in place. But it's mass that matters when you're in orbit. SRBs were used on the shuttle because of the high volumetric energy density. But volume isn't as important as mass once you're actually in space.
 
arknor said:
does the radiation disapear if it explodes in space?
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*hits arknor with book*

You

*hits arknor with book*

can't

*hits arknor with book*

create

*hits arknor with book*

or

*hits arknor with book*

destroy

*hits arknor with book*

energy!

*hits arknor with book*


*hits arknor with book*

There :)
 
We have launched nuclear power generators into space in the past, many probes that NASA and Russia that have been launched to explore the outer parts of the solar system have been powered by radioisotope thermoelectric generators as solar cells are very inefficient at the distance from the sun that the spacecraft operate.
 
I think it depends on where it is detonated. If it is close enough to the earth then most of the radioactive fallout from the explosion will be attracted by Earths mavity and will either remain in orbit or burn up in the atmosphere. If the explosion happens far enough away from the Earth then there will just be a very large(but still tiny in space terms) cloud of radioactive dust floating at some point in space. The radiation that is released by the blast will just go off into space and become a tiny part of the overall radiation that is present within the universe.
 
Nuclear fuel is of limited use in a rocket.
It can be used to generate electricity for the ship's systems, but it would never be able to get a ship to orbit.
Basically, nuclear propulsion (using heavy, fissile elements) is possible but so expensive, dangerous and difficult to achieve, that it will never become a viable option for spacecraft.
Pulsed fusion reactions (mini H-bomb explosions) are feasible, but again very expensive and tricky to perform, relying on very rare isotopes of Hydrogen to power the reaction. Not to mention the high-energy neutrons produced, which, being neutral, cannot be directed by magnetic fields- so the ship would need pretty massive shielding to prevent frying the crew.
Antimatter will never happen. For so many reasons. Nice thought, but no...

**Big Edit: just checked out the purported methods of nuclear rocket propulsion- would seem that a nuclear fission reactor can be used to superheat liquid hydrogen, which is then blasted out to provide thrust. Most of the methods have used hydrogen, not the heavy fissile metals, so harmful fallout is not really a problem. None of them are any good for getting off the Earth, they could be used once free of its mavity, though. Don't think any of them would be suitable for carrying crew, either...
 
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dougal1331 said:
Nuclear fuel is of limited use in a rocket.
It can be used to generate electricity for the ship's systems, but it would never be able to get a ship to orbit.
Basically, nuclear propulsion (using heavy, fissile elements) is possible but so expensive, dangerous and difficult to achieve, that it will never become a viable option for spacecraft.
Pulsed fusion reactions (mini H-bomb explosions) are feasible, but again very expensive and tricky to perform, relying on very rare isotopes of Hydrogen to power the reaction. Not to mention the high-energy neutrons produced, which, being neutral, cannot be directed by magnetic fields- so the ship would need pretty massive shielding to prevent frying the crew.
Antimatter will never happen. For so many reasons. Nice thought, but no...

**Big Edit: just checked out the purported methods of nuclear rocket propulsion- would seem that a nuclear fission reactor can be used to superheat liquid hydrogen, which is then blasted out to provide thrust. Most of the methods have used hydrogen, not the heavy fissile metals, so harmful fallout is not really a problem. None of them are any good for getting off the Earth, they could be used once free of its mavity, though. Don't think any of them would be suitable for carrying crew, either...
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the main nuclear propulsion idea is the one suggested for orian, drop nuclear bombs out the back behind a great big plate and massive shock absorber repeat until orbit is achived

(once in space you have to drop a bomb then a large amount of polystyrene or similar to provide a reaction mass to hit the plate)




the proposed rockets payloads were in the tens of thousands of tons range iirc.
 
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