Main Article: "Holy nukes in space Batman!" What will Obama do?
Will our new President finally put America on a true path to space development?
Poll Results: Weekend round up. Stunning results? You decide. If you want to see more polls like this click subscribe now, if you want to vote in the current poll, scroll down.
Star Trek: In the News. For the lastest in everything Star Trek and sci-fi. If you want more news click subscribe now, scroll to the bottom to get the lastest news.
THE COUNTDOWN- 767 days until The United States of America no longer retains the ability to launch an American into space. 767 days until America goes cap in hand to Russia to beg for a ride to the 100 billion dollar Space Station. That is just around corner in just two years America is grounded and Russia and China take center stage.
Today, the Americans In Space Blog starts a new series. Last week a series of polls were conducted on where America should be heading in space. The Moon Base option won out over an LEO Fuel Depot and FTP Vehicle. The Mars Base was third.
This week a new series is starting on Energy in Space and how it is used. Nuclear, Solar, Cemical and storage systems will be discussed. The enery can be used for a varity of mission types. From energy for propulsion to energy for a Moon Base or even BEAMING SOLAR ENERGY TO EARTH.
Yes that's right, beam solar power to earth, even the Pentagon has recently looked at Space based Satellites that could beam the solar energy anywhere on earth.
Local Generation, imported, exported.
Space Energy in a broad sense, can be used for three things:
Maintaining a space system, e.g. the ISS (International Space Station), The ISS uses solar panels to provide energy for the vehicle. From an overhead light in the bathroom, to powering on board experiments.
The space station also has cargo transfers that brings up fuel, batteries and fuel cells. It is not an energy exporter but self generating with augmented Storage Devices.
Imported, the energy is created or prepared for use on earth and launched to the point in space for use. A LEO fuel depot would be an example of this.
Exported, generated from some point in space and sent someplace else for final use. A Solar Space Power (SSP) system of satellites collecting solar energy and sent down to earth.
Starting with Nuclear, we will examine various strategies for utilizing Nuclear for power and propulsion.
The Bush Administration, like a lot of it's programs, was started with a create public fanfare, sound bites and photo ops abounded. THEN? they cut the funding as quickly and quietly as possible. One of those promising programs was:
Project Prometheus
"Nuclear reactors may be used to power ion engines such as this one used on Deep Space 1Project Prometheus was established in 2003 by NASA to develop nuclear-powered systems for long-duration space missions. This is NASA's first serious foray into nuclear spacecraft propulsion since the cancellation of the NERVA project in 1972. However, as of As of 2005[update], the Project faces an uncertain future and is likely to be reduced to a low-level research effort. Its budget shrank from $430 million in 2005 to only $100 million in 2006, $90 million of which was allocated to pay closeout costs on canceled contracts.
Motivations
Due to their distance from the Sun, spacecraft exploring the outer planets are severely limited in that they cannot use solar power as a source of electrical energy for onboard instrumentation or for ion propulsion systems. Previous missions to the outer planets such as Voyager and Galileo probe have relied on radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTG's) as their primary power source. Unlike RTG's which rely on heat produced by the natural decay of radioactive isotopes, Project Prometheus called for the use of a small nuclear reactor as the primary power source.
The primary advantages of this would be:
Increased power generation compared to RTG's, allowing scientists and engineers more flexibility in both mission design and operations.
Increased spacecraft longevity.
Increased range and propulsion power.
Technology
Project Prometheus is focused on two types of spacecraft power systems:
Nuclear Thermal Propulsion (NTP)
Studies of Nuclear thermal rocket engines along similar lines as NERVA.
Nuclear Electric Propulsion (NEP)
Development of RTG type technology,
The use of a nuclear reactor to run ion engines."
WOW! That sure sounds good, on paper! Unfortunatly, that is as far as it ever got, it was soon cut. As the numbers show 430 to only 100 then finally 90 million to CLOSE OUT THE PROGRAM.
Are there risks? Most certainly there are and it would be foolhardy to pretend there isn't. The question to ask is: "Are the Risks Managable"
Risks
"given that oxide reactor elements are designed to withstand high temperatures (up to 3500 K) and high pressures (up to 200 atm normal operating pressures) it's highly unlikely a reactor's fuel elements would be reduced to powder and spread over a wide-area. More likely highly radioactive fuel elements would be dispersed intact over a much smaller area, and although individually quite lethal up-close, the overall hazard from the elements would be confined to near the launch site and would be much lower than the many open-air nuclear weapons tests of the 1950s"
In the last 50 years many advances have been made around the world, when it comes to nuclear power. From better knowledge, safer building and operational management to reprocessing of spent fuel and lowering the amount having to be stored. In my opinion we are ready to work on this. That does not mean work on this with the mind set of the "deregulation" crowd. I want this REGULATED and INTENSE OVERSITE. We can and should move forward but NOT at the expense of both safety and storage capability.
NERVA "is an acronym for Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Application. The NERVA rocket engine was based on Kiwi nuclear reactor technology (the original flightless nuclear thermal rocket designs were named after the Kiwi, a flightless bird). In the early 1960s NASA planned to use NERVA to power a RIFT (Reactor-In-Flight-Test) nuclear stage to be launched in the early 1970s. The completed NERVA would be a nuclear powered upper stage for the Saturn V, which would allow the upgraded Saturn to launch interplanetary payloads. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center had the development responsibility for the rocket stage."
Further research took place on the NERVA, including the Alpha and gamma versions.
"A nuclear propulsion system possessed the singular advantage of using the reactor as a thermal-energy source for a long-life electrical generating system (dual-mode system). With the nuclear rocket engine as a thermal-energy source, power levels of 10 to 25 MWe for durations of two to five years could be achieved for more ambitious missions than were possible with the Pioneer or Mariner probes, at a mass expense less than that of then-envisioned space-power systems, such as SNAP-8 and the Brayton cycle. Some applications requiring these power levels were data transmission at high bit rates and side-looking radar mapping. An additional advantage for dual-mode operation arose for outer-planet missions where the nuclear stage was used for orbit injection; namely, by operating the power system during reactor cool-down, the additional mass of the power system could be compensated by savings in cooldown propellant. Also, the electric-generating system could be operated during the transit for payload conditioning, vehicle attitude control, communications, and data transmission for scientific experiments such as mapping of the asteroid belt"
Here is another form of Nuclear Propulsion. there are many different types and only a couple will be presented.
"The radioisotope rocket is a type of rocket engine that uses the heat generated by the decay of radioactive elements to heat a working fluid, which is then exhausted through a rocket nozzle to produce thrust. They are similar in nature to the nuclear thermal rockets such as NERVA, but are considerably simpler and often have no moving parts.
The basic idea is a development of existing radioisotope thermoelectric generator, or RTG, systems, in which the heat generated by decaying nuclear fuel is used to generate power. In the rocket application the generator is removed, and the working fluid is instead used to produce thrust directly. Temperatures of about 1500 to 2000°C are possible in this system, allowing for specific impulses of about 700 to 800 seconds (7 to 8 kN·s/kg), about double that of the best chemical engines such as the LH2-LOX SSME.
However the amount of power generated by such systems is typically fairly low. Whereas the full "active" reactor system in a nuclear thermal rocket can be expected to generate over a gigawatt, a radioisotope generator might get 5 kW. This means that the design, while highly efficient, can produce thrust levels of perhaps 1.3 to 1.5 N, making them useful only for thrusters. In order to increase the power for medium-duration missions, engines would typically use fuels with a short half-life such as Po 210, as opposed to the typical RTG which would use a long half-life fuel such as plutonium in order to produce more constant power over longer periods of time"
Nuclear thermal rocket
"In a nuclear thermal rocket a working fluid, usually hydrogen, is heated to a high temperature in a nuclear reactor, and then expands through a rocket nozzle to create thrust. The nuclear reactor's energy replaces the chemical energy of the reactive chemicals in a traditional rocket engine. Due to the higher energy density of the nuclear fuel compared to chemical ones, about 107 times, the resulting efficiency of the engine is at least twice as good as chemical engines even considering the weight of the reactor, and even higher for advanced designs"
The three types are solid core, liquid core, gas core. Each has advantages and disadvantages. Again from Wiki:
"To date, no American nuclear thermal rocket has flown, or even reached a stage of development where it could be. The Russian nuclear thermal rocket RD-0410 was flown in 1985"
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Other Links:
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Memories of the Space Age
POLLING - THE WEEKEND ROUND UP:
Saturday was the first Weekly Tracking Poll, it will measure how much funding NASA should recieve, based on peak funding during the Apollo Era. During the height of Apollo funding reached around 4% of the federal budget. Today NASA gets table scraps relative to the 1960's and the four percent of the budget. Last year's budget NASA recieved less then one percent. Only about 6 tenths of one percent.
Percent of Budget towards Space Spending.
MORE then 4% the peak spending during Apollo.............................23%
4% Peak spending for Apollo ............................................................8%
3% three percent, 25% less then the Peak of Apollo Spending........20%
2% two percent, 50% less then the Peak of Apollo Spending..........14%
1% one percent, 75% less then the Peak of Apollo Spending............5%
.6% six tenths of 1% - current funding...............................................8%
LESS Then .6 tenths of one percent. Less then Current Budget.......17%
75% of the Voters would like to see an increase in NASA funding and 25% would like to see NASA's budget the same or smaller.
The NEW SUNDAY WEEKLY POLL "So let it be written, so let it be done" had some big surprises.
So let it be written, so let it be done.
Make History and start American Space tourism and thousands of new jobs. ..79%
Make Wars and thousands of new casualties................................................... 11%
No Opinion.............................................................................................
........... 9%
Can you BELIEVE THAT? 11% voted for more war. Some NEOCON Republicans must have been visiting the site.
STAR TREK: In The News.
IDW to Publish New Star Trek Comic Book Series
"IDW Publishing has joined with Paramount Pictures, J.J. Abrams' Bad Robot Productions, Kurtzman/Orci Productions and CBS Consumer Products to publish a four-issue limited comic book series tied to next summer's new Star Trek movie, which will be released in theaters on May 8, 2009. The first comic in the series, "Star Trek: Countdown #1," will be released in January 2009 to the comic book direct market."
YESTERDAY'S INTERESTING COMMENTS: From SPACE & WAR & OBAMA?
When a commentater said "Space tourism is a joke Or worse, a fraud -- designed to bilk people of millions for a slim chance at flying on a Soyuz, up and down, for about a week. The space tourists perform no useful function on the spacecraft or the space station -- they just take up room."
Well that sure prompted a fast response from Arken
"There's other space tourism.Virgin Galactic should be in full operation in a couple of years. I was at SpaceShipOne's maiden voyage into space a couple of years ago. If I had the money to spend, I would definitely pay for a ticket and with the price in tens of thousands instead of millions, the line is already a mile long. There are already private companies working on plans of orbital tourism craft.
Space tourism right now is the way the Russians keep their space program afloat, so even there it does some good because the ISS would be dead without them, especially when we abandon the shuttle program in a couple of years."
Two regular commentators, Bill White and Ferris Valyn discussed different options relating to a Fuel Depot. They differ on where it should be located, Bill suggested a lagrange Point while Ferris thought closer to home in LEO would be better.
--Advocate's Corner--
The "Americans In Space" Diary currently advocates the following:
Manned Space Flight:
HLV - Heavy Launch Vehicle.
LEO Fuel Depot.
FTP Vehicle.
PROJECT PROMETHEUS -
Robotic Missions:
TPF - Terrestrial Planet Finder
JIMO - Jupiter Icy Moons Mission
TERMS: Terminology used on Americans In Space Blog
When commenting on astronauts these are the four types of space sailors:
Astronaut.PVT = Private astronaut, works with a privately owned space vehicle's operations.
( Burt Rutan and Scaled Composites - Space Ship One, )
Astronaut.COM = Commercial astronaut, works with a commercially owned space vehicle's operations.
( SPACE X - Dragon, Bigelow Aerospace - Sundancer, Virgin Galtic - Space Ship Two )
Astronaut.CIV = Civilian astronaut, works with a civilian owned space vehicle's operations.
( NASA, ISS - STS)
Astronaut.GOV = Government astronaut, works with a government owned space vehicle's operations.
( Military Space Place)
Someone asked, "do we have to continue with the astro?"
Well without astro, being a "naut" would be nothing. It helped build the mystical theme of being an ASTRONAUT. Having that Astro attached to your name is therefore special.
These are the three so far; Astrotech, Astrogator, Astrotourist.
The Current List of space titles used in this Diary.
astronaut = Astronauts are the Space Sailors working on and piloting space vehicles.
-- Astronaut.PVT, Astronaut.COM, Astronaut.CIV, Astronaut.GOV
astrotech = Astrotechs are the builders and mission specialists.
astrogator = Astrogators are the space investigators, the research scientists.
astrotourist = Astrotourists are the vistors to space.
-- OTHER TERMS --
FTP = Fly to point, piloting a space vehicle to a point in space, like a Lagrange point, or as a fly by: moon, mars, asteroid. There are no landings involved with a fly to point mission! Crews can do an egress to perform certain tasts. For example, a mission to a Lagrange point, dock with the James Webb Telescope, egress and make repairs.
LEO - Low Earth Orbit
GEO - Geosynchronous Earth Orbit
GTO - Geosychronous Transfer Orbit
EMLP - The Earth-Moon Lagrange Point
ESL1 - Earth-Sun Lagrange Point 1
ESL2 - Earth-Sun Lagrange Point 2
LL0 - Low Lunar Orbit
SM1 - Sun-Mars Lagrange Point
Today's Poll
This is a general survey to gather a preliminary starting point view of support and how broad that support is for various options in space.