Nuclear salt-water rocket
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A nuclear salt-water rocket is a type of nuclear thermal rocket designed by Robert Zubrin that would be fueled by water bearing dissolved salts of plutonium or U235. These would be stored in tanks that would prevent a critical mass from forming by some combination of geometry or neutron absorption. The rocket would be powered by a nuclear-thermal reaction when the water was injected into a reaction chamber.
Calculations show that this rocket would have both very high thrust (1.3 x 107 N, for one design) and a very high specific impulse (66 kN·s/kg for the same design), a rare combination of traits in the rocket world.
See also: spacecraft propulsion
External links
- Nuke Your Way to the Stars (http://www.npl.washington.edu/AV/altvw56.html)
References
- R. Zubrin, "Nuclear Salt Water Rockets: High Thrust at 10,000 sec ISP", Journal of the British Interplanetary Society 44, 371-376 (1991)