Mastodawn

thejml Jul 27, 2023

The US government is taking a serious step toward space-based nuclear propulsion

The US government is taking a serious step toward space-based nuclear propulsion - lemm.ee

Four years from now, if all goes well, a nuclear-powered rocket engine will launch into space for the first time. The rocket itself will be conventional, but the payload boosted into orbit will be a different matter.

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ddonuts4 Jul 27, 2023

Sounds risky AF

If the rocket explodes, nuclear fuel could fall back to earth
If not de-orbited properly, the nuclear fuel could end up scattered across a country - This already happened… multiple times… in 1973 1977, 1983
If something goes wrong in orbit, now we have radioactive space junk… this has already happened in the past many times

Kosmos 954 - Wikipedia

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arditty

As with any technological advancement , there are risks, but if humanity is ever intending to become a spacefairing species, we will have to make peace with nuclear energy. It’s the only technology that comes anywhere close to making interplanetary travel feasible at large scale.