Download or read book An Historical Perspective of the Nerva Nuclear Rocket Engine Technology Program written by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2018-08-16 with total page 30 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nuclear rocket research and development was initiated in the United States in 1955 and is still being pursued to a limited extent. The major technology emphasis occurred in the decade of the 1960s and was primarily associated with the Rover/NERVA Program where the technology for a nuclear rocket engine system for space application was developed and demonstrated. The NERVA (Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Application) technology developed twenty years ago provides a comprehensive and viable propulsion technology base that can be applied and will prove to be valuable for application to the NASA Space Exploration Initiative (SEI). This paper, which is historical in scope, provides an overview of the conduct of the NERVA Engine Program, its organization and management, development philosophy, the engine configuration, and significant accomplishments. Robbins, W. H. and Finger, H. B. Unspecified Center NASA-CR-187154, NAS 1.26:187154, AIAA PAPER 91-3451, E-6312 NAS3-25266; RTOP 505-43-11...

Download or read book An Historical Perspective of the NERVA Nuclear Rocket Engine Technology Program written by W. H. Robbins and published by . This book was released on 1991 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Nuclear Thermal Propulsion Systems written by David Buden and published by . This book was released on 2011-07-01 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Interest in rockets that use fission reactors as the heat source has centered on manned flights to Mars. The demands of such missions require rockets that are several times more powerful than the chemical rockets in use today.Rocket engines operate according to the basic principles expressed in Newton's third law of motion: for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. In a chemical rocket, hot gases are created by chemical combustion; in a nuclear rocket heating of the propellant in a nuclear reactor creates hot gas. In either case, the hot gases flow through the throat of the rocket nozzle where they expand and develop thrust.Extensive development effort has been expended on nuclear rockets. The nuclear Rover/ NERVA rocket programs provide a very high confidence level that the technology for a flight nuclear rocket exists. These programs demonstrated power levels between 507 MWt and 4,100 MWt and thrust levels of up to 930 kN (200,000 Ibf). Specific impulse, a measure of rocket performance, was more than twice that of chemical rockets. Ground testing and technology development has been done on several concepts described in this book. However, though there appear to be no technical barriers to the development of a successful nuclear rocket, no nuclear rockets have been flown in space.This book describes the fundamentals of nuclear rockets, the safety and other mission requirements, developmental history of various concepts both in the U.S. and Russia, and it summarizes key developmental issues.

Download or read book A History of the Atomic Space Age and Its Implications for the Future written by Willis L. Shirk and published by Dog Ear Publishing. This book was released on 2018-02-12 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Atomic Space Age has been and continues to be an engine for future wealth creation. Humanity stands on the verge of becoming an interplanetary species. We know we are made of star-stuff precisely because many of the isotopes in our bodies originated in the death throes of dying suns. With the discovery of nuclear fission in 1938, mankind was for the first time able to glimpse both our distant past and our possible future. As with the discovery of fire and agriculture thousands of years ago, wind power hundreds of years ago, and steam power and electricity in the nineteenth century, we must now learn to tame this powerful new force locked within the heart of the atom. Buckminster Fuller once observed that wealth is nothing more than energy compounded by ingenuity. Since (mass-)energy can never decrease, and ingenuity will only increase, there is no limit to the quantity of wealth that our species can and will create using nuclear space propulsion.

Download or read book Scientific and Technical Aerospace Reports written by and published by . This book was released on 1992 with total page 1572 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Atomic Audit written by Stephen I. Schwartz and published by Brookings Institution Press. This book was released on 2011-12-01 with total page 750 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since 1945, the United States has manufactured and deployed more than 70,000 nuclear weapons to deter and if necessary fight a nuclear war. Some observers believe the absence of a third world war confirms that these weapons were a prudent and cost-effective response to the uncertainty and fear surrounding the Soviet Union's military and political ambitions during the cold war. As early as 1950, nuclear weapons were considered relatively inexpensive— providing "a bigger bang for a buck"—and were thoroughly integrated into U.S. forces on that basis. Yet this assumption was never validated. Indeed, for more than fifty years scant attention has been paid to the enormous costs of this effort—more than $5 trillion thus far—and its short and long-term consequences for the nation. Based on four years of extensive research, Atomic Audit is the first book to document the comprehensive costs of U.S. nuclear weapons, assembling for the first time anywhere the actual and estimated expenditures for the program since its creation in 1940. The authors provide a unique perspective on U.S. nuclear policy and nuclear weapons, tracking their development from the Manhattan Project of World War II to the present day and assessing each aspect of the program, including research, development, testing, and production; deployment; command, control, communications, and intelligence; and defensive measures. They also examine the costs of dismantling nuclear weapons, the management and disposal of large quantities of toxic and radioactive wastes left over from their production, compensation for persons harmed by nuclear weapons activities, nuclear secrecy, and the economic implications of nuclear deterrence. Utilizing archival and newly declassified government documents and data, this richly documented book demonstrates how a variety of factors—the open-ended nature of nuclear deterrence, faulty assumptions about the cost-effectiveness of nuclear weapons, regular misrepresentati

Download or read book Nuclear Rocket Engine Development Program written by United States. Congress. Senate. Aeronautical and Space Sciences and published by . This book was released on 1971 with total page 150 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Development of Nuclear Thermal Propulsion Technology for Use in Space written by United States. Congress. House. Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight and published by . This book was released on 1993 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Heat Pipe Applications in Fission Driven Nuclear Power Plants written by Bahman Zohuri and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-02-14 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents a new and innovative approach for the use of heat pipes and their application in a number of industrial scenarios, including space and nuclear power plants. The book opens by describing the heat pipe and its concept, including sizing, composition and binding energies. It contains mathematical models of high and low temperature pipes along with extensive design and manufacturing models, characteristics and testing programs. A detailed design and safety analysis concludes the book, emphasizing the importance of heat pipe implementation within the main cooling system and within the core of the reactor, making this book a useful resource for students, engineers, and researchers.

Download or read book Science in Flux written by Mark D. Bowles and published by Government Printing Office. This book was released on 2006 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Science in Flux written by National Aeronautics Administration and published by CreateSpace. This book was released on 2013-10 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Science in Flux" traces the history of one of the most powerful nuclear test reactors in the United States and the only nuclear facility ever built by NASA. In the late 1950s NASA constructed Plum Brook Station on a vast tract of undeveloped land near Sandusky, Ohio. Once fully operational in 1963, it supported basic research for NASA's nuclear rocket program (NERVA). Plum Brook represents a significant, if largely forgotten, story of nuclear research, political change, and the professional culture of the scientists and engineers who devoted their lives to construct and operate the facility. In 1973, after only a decade of research, the government shut Plum Brook down before many of its experiments could be completed. Even the valiant attempt to redefine the reactor as an environmental analysis tool failed, and the facility went silent. The reactors lay in costly, but quiet standby for nearly a quarter-century before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission decided to decommission the reactors and clean up the site. The history of Plum Brook reveals the perils and potentials of that nuclear technology. As NASA, Congress, and space enthusiasts all begin looking once again at the nuclear option for sending humans to Mars, the echoes of Plum Brook's past will resonate with current policy and space initiatives.

Download or read book To the End of the Solar System written by James A. Dewar and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 472 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chemically propelled rockets can lift less than 5 percent of their take-off weight into orbit, a fact that could forever limit the space program. Nuclear-powered rockets, however, with their superior thrusting power and speed, are radically different. So argues James A. Dewar in the only comprehensive history ever written of the nuclear rocket project. It is a story of political battles over the space program's future, involving Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon, and a readable account of its technical successes, a story perhaps more interesting and certainly more important, Dewar believes, than the history of atomic and H-bomb development. Dewar maintains that only by reestablishing a nuclear rocket project can the nation have a space program worthy of the 21st century, one that makes reality of the hopes and dreams of science fiction.

Download or read book NASA s Nuclear Frontier written by Mark D. Bowles and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Space Nuclear Propulsion for Human Mars Exploration written by National Academies of Sciences Engineering and Medicine and published by . This book was released on 2021-11-12 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Space Nuclear Propulsion for Human Mars Exploration identifies primary technical and programmatic challenges, merits, and risks for developing and demonstrating space nuclear propulsion technologies of interest to future exploration missions. This report presents key milestones and a top-level development and demonstration roadmap for performance nuclear thermal propulsion and nuclear electric propulsion systems and identifies missions that could be enabled by successful development of each technology.

Download or read book Outer Space and Popular Culture written by Annette Froehlich and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2022-02-17 with total page 115 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Following on from Part 1, which was highly acclaimed by the space community, this peer-viewed book provides detailed insights into how space and popular culture intersect across a broad spectrum of areas, including cinema, music, art, arcade games, cartoons, comics, and advertisements. This is a pertinent topic since the use of space themes differs in different cultural contexts, and these themes can be used to explore various aspects of the human condition and provide a context for social commentary on politically sensitive issues. With the use of space imagery evolving over the past sixty years of the space age, this topic is ripe for in-depth exploration. Covering a wide array of relevant and timely topics, the book examines the intersections between space and popular culture, and offers accounts of space and its effect on culture, language, and storytelling from the southern regions of the world.

Download or read book Nuclear Thermal Propulsion Technology Results of an Interagency Panel in FY 1991 written by and published by . This book was released on 1993 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Congressional Record written by United States. Congress and published by . This book was released on 1968 with total page 1390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: