Monday, March 25, 2013

Nuclear Thermal Rocket to Ceres

An earlier post speculated about colonizing the largest of the asteroids in the asteroid belt.

The main problem is how to get there.  The delta-v is 4k km/sec more than a Mars roundtrip mission.

One possibility is to use a nuclear thermal rocket to get there.  The ISP is nearly double that for LH2/LOX, so you need less fuel for the same payload.

According to something I heard on the space show with one of the guests, a nuclear thermal rocket could make a big difference in a Mars mission.  It could make a big difference in a mission like this too, at least I suspect that it would.

Here's the previous post on the subject.


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