UK SABRE ENGINE "SKYLON" SSTO has legs-again

NUKE ROCKY44 · Senior Member

UK SABRE ENGINE "SKYLON" SSTO has legs-again

androbot2084 · Veteran Member

Again it is more of the same. A super advanced form of bean fart power. Although Alan Bond claims that this new rocket technology will get us to Mars for 100 billion dollars the fact remains that it will require hundreds of launches to assemble the spacecrafts, hundreds of days to get to Mars and if there are cost overuns we may be looking at a good percentage of a trillion dollars spent. Before we even get to Mars it is all too likely that the project will get the budget axe.

Arthur C. Clarke said very wisely that the only way that we humans could get to Mars is with something like the Orion atomic rocket.
Atomic bombs with energy densities of thousands and even millions of times that of our best conventional fuels which are feeble in comparison.

Atomic bombs not only trump chemical fuels but are vastly more powerfull than even nuclear thermal rocket engines which in my opinion are nothing more than nuclearized chemical rockets. Of course there are exotic technologies that are equivalent to Orion but these technologies are always 50 years into the future.

Arthur C. Clarke also mentioned that problem with the idea of Orion atomic rocket is that it is insane. Not because the idea won't work but rather it is insane to think that we might propel a rocket with atomic explosions. Nevertheless Arthur C. Clarke predicted that there will come a day when most humans will look at the sky and will not be able to find Earth.

Until Darth Vader becomes President it will be unlikely that the United States or even Russia will build a Death Star to get us to Mars. However Darth Vaders spirit is very much alive in the Islamic countries who would not hesitate to nuke Israel once they have the capability. In my science fiction book that I am now writing the most brilliant Israeli engineers design an Orion atomic rocket that can be built by any major developing country and sends a secret agent of the Mossad (who will try and become the new Queen Esther) to the King of Iran's bedchamber in order to pitch the idea that the best way to humiliate the infidel is not to fight and die in a nuclear war but to be the first human to get to Mars. However the real objective of the mission is to get rid of the entire nuclear weapons arsenal of Iran, Pakistan and India. So imperative is this objective that the mission is secretly expanded to include a Saturn flyby just in case a Mars mission does not dispose of all of the bombs.

Although the scenerio seems technologically far fetched I have tried to make it as realistic as possible. Remember that atomic rockets made out of steel are much easier to construct than chemical rockets because there are no weight limitations. And adding further realism to my novel it is acknowledged that even with the help of the best Israeli scientists Iran simply does not have the technology available for a Mars landing. However this technological limitation does not stop Iran and instead they opt for a one way suicide crash landing.

NUKE ROCKY44 · Senior Member

@androbot2084;

I'd say Alan Bond PROJECT DAEDALUS is too kooky to discuss.

I kinda think SSTO can be made to work so I would encourage investment in the Skylon Saber Engine by Reaction Engines Ltd.

I'm not as dramatic as you. I happen to favor NTR for Mars and beyond unless a there's a fusion or antimatter engine (antimatter annihilation) research is gaining ground.

It could be that a hybrid (fusion-antimatter-fission) propulsion be workable in any case research and investment should proceed since it's discovery in advance space propulsion will not happen over night. It will take a lot of smaller advances that finally becomes the space propulsion of the future for solar system travel & human space flight transport.

androbot2084 · Veteran Member

Well back on topic, the subject of Project Daedalus or interstellar space travel. The main objective of a Carl Sagan Project Orion Mars mission is the disposal of nuclear weapons period. The glory of rouge countries such as Iran Pakistan and India being the first to land a human on Mars is just to give them an incentive to confiscate their nuclear weapons so they can think they are humiliating the infidel. But in reality Israel designs all the details of the rocket and the original invention is from the United States.

However the true objective of Carl Sagan was not to rid regions of nuclear weapons but the entire world. Thus Carl Sagan insisted on nothing less a Project Orion interstellar mission to get rid of the entire worlds nuclear arsenal. In George Dyson's book the original project Orion interstellar rocket was not practical because it required 30 million hydrogen bombs weighing 1 ton each. However Freeman Dyson introduced a streamlined Orion interstellar rocket that requires only 300,000 hydrogen bombs.

John · Senior Member

What does Carl Sagan have to do with Project Orion? That was Freeman Dyson and Ted Taylor et al. I think that Orion is a novel concept for its time but actually using nuclear explosives for propulsion isn't likely to happen. Some sort of nuclear pulse technique like laser fusion or anti-matter initiated fusion is more likely to be developed.

For nearer term development (which could start at anytime but likely won't be for a long time) nuclear thermal propulsion is the way to go if Mars is the objective. I think that it is just possible that the Russians will go that way if their economy gets strong enough. We can then buy the engines from them.

Beyond that the next generation of propulsion is a nuclear-electric system based on VASIMR. We will need a major as advance in space nuclear power to make this viable. These system could perform better than magnetic confined fusion give the great mass of the magnets required.

Back to Skylon. I hope that ESA funds the development but I don't have much hope in the current economic environment.

androbot2084 · Veteran Member

Carl Sagan did not invent Project Orion but he invented a use for Project Orion which was the disposal of the entire world's arsenal of nuclear weapons via an interstellar Orion mission. Since nuclear bombs cannot be unbuilt this may be the only way to get rid of them.

Since Project Orion is so dramatic the technology will only be considered in an emergency such as a large asteroid who's impact with Earth could kill millions of people.

One problem with nuclear thermal engines is that they require plutonium that could be a disaster if there is a launch failure. Project Orion can harness the power of nuclear fusion using today's technology drastically reducing the amount of plutonium needed.

An energy source like Project Orion may also be the answer to our current energy problems and global warming. Detonating hydrogen bombs in underground caves filled with billions of tons of water to produce steam would dramatically reduce radiation and eliminate meltdowns while producing a thousand times more energy than our existing reactors. While this may appear as a desperate solution the fact is that when runaway global warming gets out of hand scientists will resort to these desperate solutions anyway but by then it will be too late.

John · Senior Member

One problem with nuclear thermal engines is that they require plutonium that could be a disaster if there is a launch failure.

Actually all of the work on NTR used highly enriched uranium not plutonium. Since the reactor won't "go hot" until it is in orbit (in most plans) a launch failure would cause that much contamination. When comparing U235 to Pu239 consider that both are alpha emitters but U235 has a half-life of 700 million years to Pu239's 24,000 years. So the radioactivity level is a much lower. Also, there is a good chance that the core will remain intact.

Detonating hydrogen bombs in underground caves filled with billions of tons of water to produce steam would dramatically reduce radiation and eliminate meltdowns while producing a thousand times more energy than our existing reactors.

You try to sell the environmentalists on that one!

One thing that will reduce meltdowns of nuclear reactors is not placing the backup generators on the sea side of the reactor below the level of the sea wall. The other things is modern third generation reactors that don't have plant blackout failure mode.

Since Project Orion is so dramatic the technology will only be considered in an emergency such as a large asteroid who's impact with Earth could kill millions of people.

It would take something like that!

-- Edited by John on Tuesday 6th of September 2011 01:03:03 AM

androbot2084 · Veteran Member

I think that you are underestimating the future roll that environmentalists will play in embracing nuclear fusion which is called by them the Power of the Stars and will be central to the new age movement that promotes abundant affordable clean energy for all. The reason why environmentalists do not currently embrace nuclear energy is that it is tied too closely to nuclear weapons. When the world decides to renounce nuclear weapons and realizes the fallacy of nuclear deterrence then and only then will a few environmentalists dare to consider nuclear fusion energy if for the only reason that it is the only technology that can save the planet from the disaster of global warming. However in order for nuclear fusion to work with our existing technology a more pragmatic approach will have to be taken which may involve the use of peaceful nuclear explosions. However it is possible to design these devices and to make them totally impractical as weapons so that they do not become proliferation problems.