Comments on: Tribalism in a Starkly Capitalist Atomic Age

By: Scipio Americanus

Scipio Americanus — Thu, 04 Jun 2015 12:58:21 +0000

Isegoria, a solid core will see some neutron activation of the propellant. Hydrogen needs a double-capture to become unstable, so it’s not common. The problem gets somewhat worse if you’re using denser propellants that are more practical for surface launch, like methane. Note that it’s not because of the greater density but because the chemicals in the propellant are easier to activate.

Most of the contamination in the exhaust is due to the abrasion of fuel elements by the propellant flow, but even that’s nothing too crazy. No reason you couldn’t launch such a vehicle from the Mohave or a oil-rig type platform a bit off the Florida coast.

Candide III is correct that even Orion doesn’t produce a terrifying amount of contamination. Fallout’s only really produced by the initial ground-burst that gets the ship into the air and I believe the calculation stands that each launch will cause one additional worldwide death by cancer. I’d be interested to see how that compares with the (chemical) health effects of an equivalent LEO payload of shuttle or Proton launches.

Even that’s gone a bit past the board as they recently figured out that if you launch the Orion from a big metal plate covered in graphite there’s practically no fallout produced.

By: Candide III

Candide III — Thu, 04 Jun 2015 09:41:58 +0000

Even an Orion-type nuclear pulse rocket -- the one that rides on atomic blasts -- is not that bad, because in contrast to spent nuclear fuel, almost all fission products in a blast are short-lived. Pick a remote uninhabited spot and it can be done. Yes, nuclear tests have left traces of radioactivity all around the world, and the collective dose from them is not zero, but (a) even assuming linear no-threshold dose-response hypothesis holds, any health effects from it are not distinguishable against background and (b) we still use X-ray scans and CT, to say nothing of automobiles.

By: R.

R. — Thu, 04 Jun 2015 00:07:30 +0000

Why is he using the word ‘tribe’, when the author presumably meant nation?

By: R.

R. — Thu, 04 Jun 2015 00:02:57 +0000

Isn’t the output of a nuclear thermal rocket simply super-hot hydrogen?

Depends on what type. Most don't spew fuel everywhere. A nuclear salt-water rocket, using uranium salts that go critical in the nozzle..

I don't see the point of all this. A serious access to space requires infrastructure, not just vehicles. Skyhooks, maglev launchers, whatever — all alien to the mentality of speed and expediency that gave us the abominable Saturn V and the dead-end of Apollo.

By: Isegoria

Isegoria — Wed, 03 Jun 2015 21:30:17 +0000

Isn’t the output of a nuclear thermal rocket simply super-hot hydrogen? (Or whatever reaction mass it’s using?)

Now, if things don’t go well…

By: Scipio Americanus

Scipio Americanus — Wed, 03 Jun 2015 15:35:09 +0000

I don’t think you can really call the output of a solid-core nuclear thermal rocket “horrifically dirty,” at least not outside the context of that queer modern terror which so greatly over-weights radiation in comparison to chemical or other dangers. This is especially true of a small number of launches (like 1 in the story) or practically any number from an area far from population centers. Say, the American Southwest or the East coast of Florida.