Ever think about all the energy on Earth is either nuclear or exists today becau

[alanp]

Of course I'm referring to the sun, and how if it were powered by anything else it would have burned itself up by now. The atoms in a glass of water could power London for a month!  Nuclear energy powers 80 percent of France.  So my question is, why couldn't me make a nuclear engine to be used in space?

[wraith1701]

I don't know.  I guess there are safety concerns.. the Challenger tragedy was horrible; imagine how much worse it would have been if the shuttle were nuclear powered?  Then again, risk could be minimized if nuclear powered propulsion was only used for travel between points outside of earth orbit.  Maybe a nuclear propulsion system could be maintained in far-earth orbit, and craft could dock with it once they reached orbit.  Then the nuclear propulsion system could be used to take the craft further out; say to the moon, to mars, or even further...  Of course, there would still be the danger of something going wrong, and the propulsion system somehow crashing back to earth.  It would suck to have a nuclear-powered engine come crashing down out of the sky...

[Bryancd]

We have. There is a small nuclear reactor powering one of the deep space missions. In fact, listen to this podcast for a discussion of all the various types of propulsion:

http://www.astronomycast.com/space-flight/ep-101-advanced-propulsion-systems/

[wraith1701]

We have. There is a small nuclear reactor powering one of the deep space missions. In fact, listen to this podcast for a discussion of all the various types of propulsion:

http://www.astronomycast.com/space-flight/ep-101-advanced-propulsion-systems/

Sounds interesting.  Thanks for the link!  :thumbsup

[Bryancd]

AstonomyCast is awesome!