![]() ![]() Bussard's study had little impact at first because only 29 copies were printed, and it was classified as Restricted Data, and therefore could only be read by someone with the required security clearance. He had read Cleaver and Shepard's work, that of the Chinese physicist Hsue-Shen Tsien, and a February 1952 report by engineers at Consolidated Vultee. Bussard, a physicist working on the Nuclear Energy for the Propulsion of Aircraft (NEPA) project at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory wrote a detailed study on "Nuclear Energy for Rocket Propulsion". They reluctantly concluded that although nuclear thermal rockets were essential for deep space exploration, they were not yet technically feasible. They became collaborators, and in a series of papers published in the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society in 19, they outlined the design of a nuclear-powered rocket with a solid-core graphite heat exchanger. The public revelation of atomic energy at the end of the war generated a great deal of speculation, and in the United Kingdom, Val Cleaver, the chief engineer of the rocket division at De Havilland, and Leslie Shepherd, a nuclear physicist at the University of Cambridge, independently considered the problem of nuclear rocket propulsion. This would become the basis for Project Orion. Everett wrote a paper in which they considered the use of atomic bombs as a means of rocket propulsion. Although NERVA engines were built and tested as much as possible with flight-certified components and the engine was deemed ready for integration into a spacecraft, they never flew in space.ĭuring World War II, some scientists at the Manhattan Project's Los Alamos Laboratory where the first atomic bombs were designed, including Stan Ulam, Frederick Reines and Frederic de Hoffmann, speculated about the development of nuclear-powered rockets. ![]() Anderson and Margaret Chase Smith but was cancelled by President Richard Nixon in 1973. It had strong political support from Senators Clinton P. NERVA demonstrated that nuclear thermal rocket engines were a feasible and reliable tool for space exploration, and at the end of 1968 SNPO deemed that the latest NERVA engine, the XE, met the requirements for a human mission to Mars. The AEC, SNPO, and NASA considered NERVA to be a highly successful program in that it met or exceeded its program goals. While LASL concentrated on reactor development, NASA built and tested complete rocket engines. Reactors were tested at very low power before being shipped to Jackass Flats in the Nevada Test Site. After the formation of NASA in 1958, Project Rover was continued as a civilian project and was reoriented to producing a nuclear powered upper stage for NASA's Saturn V Moon rocket. Nuclear thermal rocket engines promised to be more efficient than chemical ones. NERVA had its origins in Project Rover, an AEC research project at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory (LASL) with the initial aim of providing a nuclear-powered upper stage for the United States Air Force intercontinental ballistic missiles. SNPO was led by NASA's Harold Finger and AEC's Milton Klein. NERVA was a joint effort of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and was managed by the Space Nuclear Propulsion Office (SNPO) until the program ended in January 1973. Its principal objective was to "establish a technology base for nuclear rocket engine systems to be utilized in the design and development of propulsion systems for space mission application". It also has variants which changes the endcaps.Ī heat resistant service bay, ideal for protecting delicate instruments or stowing small service components such as RCS tanks, batteries, etc.The Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Application ( NERVA) was a nuclear thermal rocket engine development program that ran for roughly two decades. You can buy yourself some interior radial-mounting space by jamming a rectangular or octagonal strut in there. Probodobodyne RoveMate, 6 RoveMax Model S2's, OX-STATs, Z-100 Rechargeable Battery Packs and a separator), a fact exploited in many interplanetary designs.īy default, it only has mounting points at the top and bottom of the interior, centered. It is also just big enough for a minimalistic rover (e.g. Batteries, power generators, scientific equipment, deployable radiators, etc can all be stored in the service bay. It is used to protect items, specifically science items, from reentry heating. The Service Bay (2.5m) is a part introduced in version 1.0. ![]()
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