Now you're probably thinking, wouldn't detonating a lot of nuclear bombs on Earth be bad? You'd be right, and that's why we use it in space far away from Earth so we don't contaminate the globe. The idea is conventional rockets get the ship to space, then nuclear detonations are set off behind the ship to propel it with the pulses from the released energy. Of course heavy shielding and and resistance to shock would need to be designed into the ship, among other things. Unless we somehow figure out faster than light travel, we're going to try to make propulsion technology to get us as close as we can. A lot of the things that put nuclear power on the list like efficiency, long-lifetime, and high energy density also make it a foundation for new space travel ideas. Cancer, space, energy, nuclear has tons of possibilities.
-Michael
Would this propulsion be a series of blasts, or is it a one-and-done type of deal? I guess the real question is, would they need to have a bunch of nukes onboard in order for it to work?
ReplyDeleteI feel that it would be similar to how the navy has people just for their nuclear reactors. There would have to be and it would be totally logical to dedicate engineers only to that.
DeleteIt's proposed as a series of blasts to speed the spaceship up. I'm assuming some sort of smaller scale blast where you make a container to make a supercritical reaction and as it's about to blow, you release the energy in the direction opposite you want to go. I picture like a hinged cylinder you'd fill with fuel, bring together, then open again when it's built up a lot of pressure.
DeleteThis was really interesting to think about. It has definitely never crossed my mind. However, I agree nuclear does seem to be a good choice for space travel ideas but there would need to be so much to take into consideration.
ReplyDeleteThat is literally one of the craziest things I've ever heard of. But relating to Tory's post, radiation travels much, much further in space since there is less matter to attenuate it (too bad radiation doesn't interact with dark matter). So whatever is the relative proximity of one of these detonations is gonna have a bad day.
ReplyDeleteRight! Like I was saying, you'd need to be pretty far away from Earth, the upside is not much will get through the atmosphere since that's part of what our atmosphere is for, to reduce radiation from the Sun. It's also be purely forward movement, steering would be weird.
DeleteI just find it hard to believe people would go for this kind of thing when fears of simple nuclear power plants run rampant in our ignorant generation...But I hope it does in my lifetime!!!
ReplyDeleteI imagine the ride being like the Mythbusters episode where they ride the truck with square wheels. BUMPBUMPBUMPBUMPBUMP as any passengers jiggle around
DeleteThis was such an interesting post! As I've said before, space is fascinating to me so these posts have been great. I would love to see a video of this actually occurring in space if it ever happened. I'm also interested in the effects of an explosion that big in space is.
ReplyDeleteThat's a really interesting thought, I wonder what they'd look like. I don't think they'd mushroom cloud since there's no ground to eject or air to burn...I've heard of proposed theories for space fireworks since they colorful stuff would go so much farther without friction or something.
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