Here's our update on how LEU-powered NTP is going. Demo 2027. Congratulations to UltraSafe for progress sufficient to earn this contract.
This might be a different contract than their NTP contract with NASA. UltraSafe here are talking the EmberCore. It's a rechargable radioactive battery.
Also contracted is Avalanche Energy. These guys are doing fusion, with the Orbitron. This looks more experimental thus far.
By then a Starship should be able to hoist all manner of stuff up there on the cheap. The promise is to cut the time it takes to get to "Mars", meaning Deimos; and - more so - to Ceres and beyond. I take it the engine is always-on except for the halfmark, when the ship does flip-n'-burn to decelerate.
Even half the time is too long for microgravity, and I don't think the ship is going a "torchship" 3.7 m/s2. As to "why do this", it does improve upon the time taken. Kilograms of reactor and fuel are better than kilograms of extra supplies and, not least, external shielding. But I think the crew still need to take options like hibernation and centrifugal-spin.
Given regulations (and limitations on the chamber) the nuclear fuel will be low-enriched, so this doubles as a mechanic to deliver semi-spent fuel to the destination. Maybe on Deimos they can reprocess the fuel for more energy needs. Deimos will have solar energy but, not as much as Earth LEO gets. Every little helps.
No comments:
Post a Comment