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[DavieTait]

http://news.sky.com/story/1661456/rocket-could-cut-mars-journey-time-to-six-weeks

The US did a lot of design , research and testing of Nuclear Rockets from the 1950's until 1972 , the only reason they cancelled them was the cancellation of the Apollo moon missions , the change to using the Shuttle and pressure from the anti-nuclear lot.

As a propulsion system is makes a hell of a lot of sense , ignore the screams from greenies about "pollution of space"... ahem the amount of radiation this would put into space would be like a gnat peeing in the ocean ( a lot of them have never heard of solar radiation , coronal mass ejection , high energy radiation from the rest of the galaxy... ).

If mankind is ever to get beyond earth orbit then this engine is , until they invent the Electro-Magnetic gravity drive , the only option

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NERVA

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_thermal_rocket

[Plastic - RIP]

Open-cycle nuclear engines are incredibly simple so ideal for space where there's no servicing avaialble.

The US had a nuclear-powered missile called SLAM that was to fly at supersonic speed all over Russia dropping wareheads and using its speed and low altitude to create a shock-wave that would splatter everything in its path into a radioactive slurry.

It got quite a long way into design and prototyping until someone asked where it could be tested.....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supersonic_Low_Altitude_Missile

[unbuiltnautilus]

Forgot about SLAM
To quote a completely made up genius...
".. but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn't stop to think if they should.

[Bob K]

To quote a completely made up genius...
".. but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn't stop to think if they should.

That 'genius' quote was from Jurassic Park

[unbuiltnautilus]

Not any genius, but a 'completely made up genius'....
Although I am fairly sure I had his Grandad as a maths teacher....

[furball]

The problem isn't with 'pollution' in space, there's so much radiation around up there that it's irrelevant, it's with the first bit between the ground and orbit.


If the ascent stage fails, which they do, quite frequently, then a fair bit of nuclear material would make it back to the ground (or into the atmosphere).




Lance

[DavieTait]

provided the ascent stage is human rated ( Ariane V is human rated , originally designed to carry the Hermes mini shuttle ) there shouldn't be a problem , a mission to Mars using a propulsion system like this would be put into low earth orbit and assembled over 3 or 4 launches with the propulsion segment going up last before the crew got sent up and the mission heading off to Mars.