The Space Exploration Initiative (SEI) calls for lunar and Martian exploration missions for which solid-core nuclear thermal rockets (NTRs), in virtue of their single-stage, fully-reusable nature, are ideally suited. NTRs promise double the specific impulse of chemical propulsion. A lunar mission employing a reusable NTR is currently being conducted by NASA. The NTR would be assembled in LEO in such a way that it remained 'radioactively cold' during earth-to-orbit deployment by a heavy-lift chemical booster, and therefore presented no radioactive hazard. Also under consideration is a particle-bed reactor in which the hydrogen propulsive fluid directly cools coated-particle fuel spheres.
Nuclear thermal rockets - Key to moon-Mars exploration
Aerospace America ; 30 , 7, Ju
1992-07-01
Miscellaneous
No indication
English
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