[ RadSafe ] Fission, Fusion, Mars, Spacecraft...

Tue Mar 26 13:56:33 CDT 2013

Mike,

     I'm not talking about conventional fission.   There is a different 
process that is probably more advanced than conventional  fission.  I believe 
it is already in use and is not in the public  domain.

     The other, non-fission, propulsion process is so  simple, thinking 
about it would probably amaze you.
I think it has been in  use since the German Scientists went to USA, Soviet 
Union and possibly  Argentina
(circa 1945-1947 and beyond).  I could be wrong.

     With some of this, I'm not talking about manned  spaceships, but 
rather small spaceships and/or drones which may be controlled  from the Earth's 
surface robotically.

     The one non-fission propulsion process would  probably interfere with 
the electronic operating systems of conventional  civilian and military 
planes, if one would get too close.

     The kid with the thick eyeglasses has talked about  the advanced 
fission propulsion system on various UFO and/or Ancient Alien  shoes.  Either it 
is real, not real, or mis-information.  More  later???

     You could probably build a remote-controlled  version of the 
non-fission propulsion system, with some electronics, a spaceship  exterior and some 
other things.  Making it actually work may be quite a  challenge.

     I don't think we are very far from doing any of  these propulsion 
things, and I think gifted people, working
non-publically, are doing these things already.

    Thanks, as always, for your comments.

    Joe Preisig

In a message dated 3/26/2013 12:25:11 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
Mike.Brennan at DOH.WA.GOV writes:

Hi,  Joe.

Given that I will be attending a science fiction convention  this
weekend, and one of the panels I am on is about spaceship combat,  I've
given a fair amount of thought to things like this.

With  current, or near term technology, getting mass into orbit is the
expensive  part.  This is the first big problem with using some type of
nuclear  reactor for propulsion in space: there is a minimum size you can
make a  reactor, and it is fairly big.  When you include the reactor,  its
auxiliary systems, and the reaction mass, you need a very large  system
before it has higher energy density than a chemical rocket  system.  To
use a down-to-earth example, it is clearly a good idea to  make aircraft
carriers nuclear powered, it is a reasonable idea to make  cruisers
nuclear powered, it makes no sense at all to make patrol boats  nuclear
powered.  

When thinking about space travel, it is  important to not confuse
acceleration with velocity.  The propulsion  plant determines what
acceleration your ship is capable of, but velocity is  only limited by
time and reaction mass/fuel.  (yes, I can hear you  shout, "But what
about relativity!"  By the time you can sustain  accelerations that get
you to relativistic velocities in fairly short  lengths of time, you are
not working with anything we could build with our  current understanding
of physics).  I don't foresee us building a ship  where acceleration will
be a challenge for people (once it gets out of the  gravity well, of
course).

I love nuclear power in space, but we are  at least two scientific
breakthroughs away from needing it for manned  ships.

-----Original Message-----
From:  radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu
[mailto:radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu]  On Behalf Of
JPreisig at aol.com
Sent: Monday, March 25, 2013 10:07  PM
To: radsafe at health.phys.iit.edu
Subject: [ RadSafe ] Fission, Fusion,  Mars, Spacecraft...

Dear Radsafe,

Hi.   Hope you all are well.

Chemical Propulsion  Energy --- about 1   keV

Fission  Propulsion Energy (reactor enrichment) ---  about 1 MeV

Fission Propulsion Energy (100% enriched???)  ---   about 20 x  1
MeV

These are crude energy  levels associated with  these various rocket
etc. propulsion  systems.
You can do better calculations of these levels at  home.

Some rather crude calculations involving  rocket  kinetic energy
show me that a fully enriched Uranium  propulsion system  might go 100
times faster in velocity than a  chemically based propulsion  system.
Of course, spaceship/rocket  materials considerations and limitations of
astronauts's ability to  endure/survive very large g forces may limit the
velocities and/or  accelerations a spaceship or rocket can use.

A ground  launched rocket using chemical propulsion could  place a
spaceship  using fission/fusion/chemical propulsion into space.  One
might then  be able to use enriched fission propulsion to increase a
spaceship's   velocity to get to Mars sooner than just using  chemical
propulsion.

The Tito/Zubrin??? 2018 flyby  (only???)mission to Mars is expected  to
take 501 days or so.   Maybe adding fission propulsion to this spaceship,
one could reduce this  trip time to 250 days.  This starts to sound more
do-able all the  time.  If fully enriched Uranium propulsion could be
fully  used  (not likely), the trip time might take only 5 days.

The  propulsion systems we are used to include: chemical   propulsion,
fission propulsion, fusion propulsion, enriched fission  propulsion  and
perhaps several other propulsion systems which are  being developed/used
now.  The UFO and Ancient Alien shows allude to  these several other
(advanced???) propulsion systems.
One you might be  able to figure out yourself.  The other is directly
described on one  of these Ancient Alien/UFO shows (see shows on the H2
Channel  ---USA).

Perhaps someday soon we?? will be able to use  an  enriched
fission/chemical hybrid system to propel an Earth  atmosphere spaceship
which is robotically controlled from the Earth's  surface.  Such a
spaceship could go significantly faster than a  spacecraft with human
beings  aboard.  
Is all this starting  to sound familiar???

Wonder if Dr. Von Braun was a student  of Goddard and others,  by
studying the literature???  One  UFO/Ancient Alien show describes another
source of Von Braun's Advanced  Flight Systems (not necessarily Rockets)
knowledge.  
Won't go into  it here.

Have a good week...

Joe Preisig

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