Are nuclear rockets the future of space travel?  Or will the anti-nuke crowd   
   win    
   out?   
      
   "During an Oct. 9 Aviation Week webinar moderated by Space Editor Irene Klotz,    
   three former NASA administrators agreed that the U.S. needs to harness nuclear    
   technology to propel humans beyond low Earth orbit.   
      
   With the rapid development of the Chinese space program, the U.S. does not   
   have    
   the luxury of waiting to develop new technology, said Dan Goldin, who led NASA    
   during three presidential administrations from 1992 to 2001. “We’ve been   
   using    
   the same damn rocket technology since Apollo. It’s time to grow up and say   
   the    
   magic term ‘nuclear.’ There I said it, ‘nuclear,’” Goldin said.   
   “We’re going to    
   need nuclear power on planetary bodies. We’re going to need nuclear power   
   for    
   propulsion. And if America intends to be a world leader, we’re going to have   
   to    
   grow up and learn to live with nuclear.”   
      
   The U.S. has been exploring the technology for a long time, points out Sean    
   O’Keefe, NASA administrator during George W. Bush’s presidency in 2001-05.   
   But    
   he says the nation needs to pick up the pace. Project Prometheus, an in-space    
   propulsion effort started in 2003 to develop radioisotope power systems and    
   nuclear power and propulsion systems. The program was designed to support a    
   space science mission to study the icy moons of Jupiter, but it was scrapped   
   in    
   favor of higher priorities.   
      
   The technology in Prometheus “has been developed now to a much higher   
   extent,    
   but nowhere near as quickly as we needed to see significant changes over the    
   last 15 years,” O’Keefe said. “We’re in a better place now in terms of    
   developing that technology that has been used on a limited basis in the   
   past—to    
   seriously examining that as an in-space propulsion capacity. We just need to   
   do    
   it a hell of a lot faster.”"   
      
   See:   
      
   https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/space/will-nasa-use-nucle   
   r-propulsion-faster-crewed-mission-transport   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)