@S1-A.ARPA,@MIT-MC:amon@cmu-ri-fas.arpa (05/18/85)
From: Dale.Amon@CMU-RI-FAS
The NERVA rocket engine project was halted within ~$1B of man rating. The
reason for the halt in funding was quite simple. NASA wanted to go for a
manned mission to Mars, and NERVA was the engine to do it with. Proxmire and
Mondale realized that an engine of this caliber would eventually lead to a
reemergence of the Mars program, since the existance of a capability almost
demands that it be used. So they made DAMN sure NERVA was killed. It probably
didn't help that Spiro Agnew was strongly supporting a Mars mission.
As to resurrecting the project, it would probably have to be done pretty
much from scratch. Dreamers among us imagine the documents on things like
this neatly stored in some archive, ready for disenterment. T'aint so. The
info at Jackass Flats was destroyed (dumped from drawers and burned
according to a friend of mine) by the last crew out when the contract was
cancelled. I suspect most of the rest has been cleaned out of the archives
of the contractors years ago. Most companies just don't store records for 15
years on dead projects. They also don't store them on products because of a
court ruling that can hold them liable for products if they still have the
information on them. Since they are only required to keep the info for about
5 (?) years, design info tends to vanish if it is beyond that age, except
where there are special laws applicable.
I'll bet that all of the NERVA contract and test documents still exist
though. Who needs @i(blueprints) if you have CYA documents? Says something
about our system of values, doesn't it?
(PS: When I was a teen my sister's husband was working on NERVA out at the
Flats. He was with Westinghouse Astronuclear out of Large, PA)