Published 1991
| Version v1
Book
Nuclear propulsion tradeoffs for manned Mars missions
Creators
- 1. B ampersand W Nuclear Technologies Space ampersand Defense Systems, Lynchburg, VA (United States)
Description
A conjunction class split/sprint manned Mars exploration mission was studied to evaluate tradeoffs in performance characteristics of nuclear thermal rockets. A Particle Bed Reactor-based nuclear thermal rocket was found to offer a 38 to 52 percent total mass savings compared with a NERVA-based nuclear thermal rocket for this mission. This advantage is primarily due to the higher thrust-to-weight ratio of the Particle Bed Reactor nuclear rocket. The mission is enabled by nuclear thermal rockets. It cannot be performed practically using chemical propulsion. 3 refs
Additional details
Publishing Information
- Publisher
- American Institute of Physics.
- Imprint Place
- New York, NY (United States)
- Imprint Title
- Space nuclear power systems. Part 2
- Imprint Pagination
- 508 p.
- Journal Page Range
- p. 603-606.
INIS
- Country of Publication
- United States
- Country of Input or Organization
- United States
- INIS RN
- 24039050
- Subject category
- S21: SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS;
- Descriptors DEI
- COOLING SYSTEMS; DESIGN; ENGINES; GAS COOLED REACTORS; MARS SPACE PROBES; NUCLEAR FUELS; REACTOR PHYSICS; REACTOR SAFETY; REACTOR TECHNOLOGY; REACTORS; SPACE PROPULSION REACTORS; SPACE VEHICLES; TECHNOLOGY ASSESSMENT
- Descriptors DEC
- ENERGY SOURCES; FUELS; MATERIALS; MOBILE REACTORS; POWER REACTORS; PROPULSION REACTORS; REACTOR MATERIALS; SAFETY; SPACE POWER REACTORS