DocM Posted December 10, 2011 Share Posted December 10, 2011 What's really needed is a small space-worthy nuclear reactor scalable from 1 to 12 MWe of power. Then you could power single or arrayed plasma drives. With them you could scoot around the solar system very nicely on a tiny fraction of the fuel mass needed by either chemical or nuclear thermal rockets. Sadly - no funding to decide on the reactor type or get them light enough. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neoadorable Posted December 14, 2011 Share Posted December 14, 2011 that's because the atomophobes raise hell every time you tell them about nuclear power. oh noes, nuclear power is evil! why can't we build the figgin Orion? put ten SRBs on her, launch, kick off the nuclear power, get to Alpha Centaury seven years later. WTF. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DocM Posted January 16, 2012 Share Posted January 16, 2012 http://www.swri.org/.../2011/pluto.htm Evidence of Complex Molecules Found on PlutoEven from afar, Pluto gets more and more interesting. Using the new and highly sensitive Cosmic Origins Spectrograph aboard the Hubble Space Telescope, researchers have discovered a strong ultraviolet-wavelength absorber on Pluto's surface ? providing new evidence of complex hydrocarbon and /or nitrile molecules lying on the surface. Such chemical species can be produced by the interaction of sunlight or cosmic rays with Pluto's known surface ices, including methane, carbon monoxide and nitrogen. ?This is an exciting finding because complex Plutonian hydrocarbons and other molecules that could be responsible for the ultraviolet spectral features we found with Hubble may, among other things, be responsible for giving Pluto its ruddy color,? says New Horizons Principal Investigator Alan Stern. He adds that the finding ?reminds us that even more exciting discoveries about Pluto's composition and surface evolution are likely to be in store when New Horizons arrives at Pluto in 2015.? > > Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LittleNeutrino Veteran Posted January 16, 2012 Veteran Share Posted January 16, 2012 exciting news too bad it will take nearly 10 years for it to get there, by then everyone would have forgotten about it lol. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DocM Posted January 16, 2012 Share Posted January 16, 2012 It arrives in July 2015 Now some sad news.... http://pluto.jhuapl....ws/20120116.php New Horizons Team Remembers Patsy TombaughIt was January 2006, just days before the New Horizons spacecraft lifted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida. A reporter asked Patsy Tombaugh, widow of Pluto?s discoverer, Clyde Tombaugh, what her husband might have thought about the first mission to the planet he found in 1930. ?He?d be very happy about it,? she said, ?because he?d really want to know what they were finding out about Pluto.? Today, the team fulfilling that wish mourns Patsy Tombaugh, who died Jan. 12 at age 99. "When we explore Pluto in three years, she will be as much on our minds and in our hearts, as she is today,? says New Horizons Principal Investigator Alan Stern. > Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zeta_immersion Posted January 16, 2012 Share Posted January 16, 2012 awesome but still ... are humans that small minded where politics would allow a probe or spacecraft to travel faster in outer space? ... am I the only one that is being fed up by politics in science? .. I mean come on .... let thorium become the new nuclear which would force the army to stop or slow the build of WMDs and make probes (yes that is right I said probe :) ) or spacecrafts use nuclear to travel faster ... I want to go to mars damn it or the moon ... and maybe find Liara Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neoadorable Posted January 17, 2012 Share Posted January 17, 2012 hey Doc, thanks for posting that. indeed very sad news :( the Tombaughs will always be remembered, they've done a lot for humanity. great people. Zeta: we're all with you on that. let nuclear power flourish in space. every word you say is the truth. keep saying it, people are listening. the hordes of job-seekers need the space industry, trust you me brother. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DocM Posted October 16, 2012 Share Posted October 16, 2012 http://spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=38923 Pluto's Moons and Possible Rings May Be Hazards: New Horizons and the Gauntlet it may Encounter in 2015NASA's New Horizons spacecraft is now almost seven years into its 9.5-year journey across the solar system to explore Pluto and its system of moons. Just over two years from now, in January 2015, New Horizons will begin encounter operations, which will culminate in a close approach to Pluto on July 14, 2015, and the first-ever exploration of a planet in the Kuiper Belt. As New Horizons has traveled through the solar system, its science team has become increasingly aware of the possibility that dangerous debris may be orbiting in the Pluto system, putting NASA's New Horizons spacecraft and its exploration objectives into harm's way. "We've found more and more moons orbiting near Pluto -- the count is now up to five," says Dr. Alan Stern, principal investigator of the New Horizons mission and an associate vice president of the Space Science and Engineering Division at Southwest Research Institute. "And we've come to appreciate that those moons, and those not yet discovered there, act as debris generators that populate the Pluto system with shards from small, colliding Kuiper Belt objects." "Because our spacecraft is traveling so fast -- more than 30,000 miles per hour -- a collision with a single pebble, or even a millimeter-sized grain, could cripple or destroy New Horizons," adds New Horizons Project Scientist Dr. Hal Weaver, of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, "so we need to steer clear of any debris zones around Pluto." The New Horizons team is already using every available tool -- from sophisticated computer simulations of the stability of debris orbiting Pluto, to giant ground-based telescopes, stellar occultation probes of the Pluto system, and even the Hubble Space Telescope -- to search for debris in orbit. At the same time, the team is plotting alternative, more distant courses through the Pluto system that would preserve most of the science mission but avert deadly collisions if the current flyby plan is found to be too hazardous. "We're worried that Pluto and its system of moons, the object of our scientific affection, may actually be a bit of a black widow," says Stern. "We're making plans to stay beyond her lair if we have to," adds Deputy Project Scientist Dr. Leslie Young of Southwest Research Institute. "From what we have determined, we can still accomplish our main objectives if we have to fly a 'bail-out trajectory' to a safer distance from Pluto. Although we'd prefer to go closer, going farther from Pluto is certainly preferable to running through a dangerous gauntlet of debris, and possibly even rings, that may orbit close to Pluto among its complex system of moons." Stern concludes: "We may not know whether to fire our engines on New Horizons and bail out to safer distances until just 10 days before reaching Pluto, so this may be a bit of a cliff-hanger. Stay tuned." > Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neoadorable Posted October 18, 2012 Share Posted October 18, 2012 Well, it stands to reason the closer se get the finer the details we can detect. I'm sure they'll.figure it out. Worst case just stay further out, this wasn't planned as a lander mission anyway. And glad to see you posting Doc, at least I know you're ok! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DocM Posted October 18, 2012 Share Posted October 18, 2012 Thanks! Finally far enough from death's doorstep to feel like posting regularly again. I'm not all the way back, but getting there. I'm off the IV antibiotics, my residual limb is pretty much healed and the first temporary prosthetic leg and foot should be here in a week or so. The final one comes after I re-learn to walk & will be made mainly of titanium and carbon fiber with a synthetic skin cover. Loads of OT and PT first though - having about 60-90 min of each daily. My grandson's already calling me RoboGramps ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tuishimi Posted October 18, 2012 Share Posted October 18, 2012 What's really needed is a small space-worthy nuclear reactor scalable from 1 to 12 MWe of power. Then you could power single or arrayed plasma drives. With them you could scoot around the solar system very nicely on a tiny fraction of the fuel mass needed by either chemical or nuclear thermal rockets. Sadly - no funding to decide on the reactor type or get them light enough. Yes, all for this. But... am I out dated here? Weren't there restrictions based on treaties we had with the Soviet Union and other countries regarding nuclear devices (mainly engine testing I think) in space? Or am I way off base? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+devHead Subscriber² Posted October 18, 2012 Subscriber² Share Posted October 18, 2012 I guess they've decided to send a probe to Pluto to let it know about its status, that it's no longer a planet. How do you explain we're letting it know over a decade after we decided its new specification? Kinda awkward. Anyhow, hopefully Pluto will take it like a man. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neoadorable Posted October 27, 2012 Share Posted October 27, 2012 Hey Doc, sorry for the belated reply...RoboGramps! heh heh, ok you can be RoboDoc from now on round here. Dev: Pluto will be fine. Next probe will be faster and more reliable, we're moving forward my friend. Humanity is just like Doc here, courage in the face of challenge and adversity Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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