ESG7@DFVLROP1.BITNET (10/17/86)
Someone asked about source material on Nuclear Fusion Pulse rockets for
interstellar travel. The best source is the Project Daedalus final
report produced by the British Interplanetary society. To acquire a
copy write:
The British Interplanetary Society
27/29 South Lambeth Road
Lonon SW8 1SZ, England
Also the Journal of the British Interplanetarey Society (JBIS),
Interstellar Studies (red cover series) often describes this style of
propulsion along with Bussard ram scoop and antimatter propulsion
schemes. The JBIS is hands down, the best source of information about
the engineering on interstellar travel. There is also a paper floating
around entitled: "A Laser Fusion Rocket for Interplanetary Propulsion"
by Roderick A. Hyde, 27 Set. 1983 from Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory (Larry Labs), preprint number UCRL-88857. Roderick Hyde is a
nuclear weapons designer who designs starships when he isn't designing a
bigger and better thermonuclear warhead. Supposably, most of his major
innovations on starship design are classified (Q-Clearance). Also
"Astronautica ACTA" will on occasion produce something on interstellar
travel. The most exciting stuff with respect to interstellar travel is
being done by Sandia National Labs. Sandia is working on an inertial
confinement scheme based on high energy neutral particle beams rather
than lasers. This sort of system could easily be adapted into a one
million sec. specific impulse propulsion system. Word has it that the
Nova, Novette inertial confinement scheme at Larry Labs is a loser and
only good for bomb work. It'll never be useful for producing electrical
power or propelling a spacecraft.
Gary Allenhenry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) (10/19/86)
> ... Word has it that the > Nova, Novette inertial confinement scheme at Larry Labs is a loser and > only good for bomb work. It'll never be useful for producing electrical > power or propelling a spacecraft. Laser fusion has never looked particularly good for propelling spacecraft; lasers are too inefficient and too heavy. This is why the Daedalus study picked electron-beam fusion instead. -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!henry
pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M Koloc) (10/22/86)
>> ... Word has it that the >> Nova, Novette inertial confinement scheme at Larry Labs is a loser and >> only good for bomb work. It'll never be useful for producing electrical >> power or propelling a spacecraft. In article <7245@utzoo.UUCP> henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) writes: >Laser fusion has never looked particularly good for propelling spacecraft; >lasers are too inefficient and too heavy. This is why the Daedalus study >picked electron-beam fusion instead. That choice was made some time ago, and now it seems that light ion beam fusion looks more promising.. . but, still doubtful. Although (assuming every thing works) the size reduction would be very significant from laser to light ion fusion devices, the size is still too large to be viable for boost phase or "planetary" work. The "Spheromak" is about the right size and is simple enough to consider for use as a source for fusion driven propulsion, but it has serious engineering problems due to the need for a "tightly fitting" conducting shell. This shell is solid in Spheromaks, and tends to be vaporized by the dense adjacent fusion plasma. The PLASMAK(TM) uses a plasma shell and surrounding high pressure gas blanket as the "wall", and gets much better conductivity by setting up with energetic electron currents. Because it can be compression heated, it can burn protium boron eleven to three helium nucleii, and that means no radiation problems. The recirculated liquid density gas blanket is plasmatized by the fusion energy and that in turn either drives an inductive MHD electric power generator at 60 hertz, OR it could be expanded directly to generate boost thrust for lift phase applications, during planetary landings/lift-offs. Since these plasmoids are formed by direct or inductive electric discharge in the fusion fuels, and the compression heating is ideally efficient, the resulting engines will be very compact in size. Averarge power would be on the order of 10 gigawatts. In propulsion applications thrust would vary greatly depending on available mass reserves. +---------------------------------------------------------+--------+ | Paul M. Koloc, President: (301) 445-1075 | FUSION | | Prometheus II, Ltd.; College Park, MD 20740-0222 | this | | {umcp-cs | seismo}!prometheus!pmk; pmk@prometheus.UUCP | decade | +---------------------------------------------------------+--------+
robertd@ncoast.UUCP (Robert DeMarco) (10/25/86)
Whats a gigawhat?