** The Official Space Flight Thread - The Space Station and Beyond **

NASA has signed a contract with DARPA for the delivery of the worlds first nuclear propulsion rocket. NASA needs to build and launch the demonstrator by 2027.

NASA's current design looks like it would be a two stage rocket where the first stage is still liquid fueled and the second stage will be nuclear powered. The goal of the mission is to place the rocket in a 2000km orbit around the Earth. The 2000km orbit was chosen to minimise the risk to Earth in the event of leakage. Based on the current design, once in orbit the rocket will be able to remain there for 200 years.
 
Grim5 said:
NASA has signed a contract with DARPA for the delivery of the worlds first nuclear propulsion rocket. NASA needs to build and launch the demonstrator by 2027.

NASA's current design looks like it would be a two stage rocket where the first stage is still liquid fueled and the second stage will be nuclear powered. The goal of the mission is to place the rocket in a 2000km orbit around the Earth. The 2000km orbit was chosen to minimise the risk to Earth in the event of leakage. Based on the current design, once in orbit the rocket will be able to remain there for 200 years.
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Good news. But I wonder how long it'll be before the usual brigade of unwashed, sandal wearing lentil eaters start whining about the launching of nuclear material into orbit?
 
Malevolence said:
Good news. But I wonder how long it'll be before the usual brigade of unwashed, sandal wearing lentil eaters start whining about the launching of nuclear material into orbit?
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A bit late for that: we've been launching probes with RTGs - essentially plutonium or uranium - for decades.
 
Quartz said:
A bit late for that: we've been launching probes with RTGs - essentially plutonium or uranium - for decades.
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Yes, but RTGs are tiny and more akin to a nuclear battery than a reactor. Plus, they're contained in a cask that, for intents and purposes, is pretty much indestructible during a launch. DRACO is going to require a full-on nuclear reactor and the fuel. Personally, I can't wait but you just know there's going to be shenanigans from the environMENTALsts.
 
The asteroid, dubbed 2023 BU, will be only 2,200 miles above the Earth's surface when it passes over South America's southern edge at 7:27 p.m. ET, NASA says.

For comparison, that's a little shorter than a straight-line trip from New York City to Las Vegas, which is about 2,230 miles through the air.

"In fact, this is one of the closest approaches by a known near-Earth object ever recorded," said Davide Farnocchia, a navigation engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, as the agency announced the close passage.

Even if it did hit our planet — which it won't, scientists repeat — the small asteroid's main effect would be visual, at it would become a fireball in our atmosphere, with some debris likely falling as small meteorites.

The asteroid is arriving on short notice: 2023 BU was just discovered on Saturday by Crimean amateur astronomer Gennadiy Borisov, who has previously been credited with discovering a number of comets and asteroids, including the first confirmed interstellar comet.
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17221 km/h speed so spotted at 2.5Mkm
 
Just got watching a Neil deGrasse Tyson video about NASA future Psyche Asteroid Mission.

Could this mission be a game changer for humanity, in a sense that it could potentially be the spark for asteroid mining that would potentially drive demand, specially if the asteroid in question contains rare metals. With the mission costing Nasa roughly $1b, the asteroids value is currently estimated at $8 quintillion, which is roughly 70 times more than the entire global economy.
 
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