Science Forums 2

[CraigD]

Originally Posted by Moontanman

What we need is a better and lighter power supply. The gaseous core nuclear reactor engine has an Isp of over 3000 to about 5000 that is as much as 10 times as good as the Saturn five rocket. This rocket can not only be operated safely but if it massed the same as the Saturn five rocket it could launch 2 million pounds of cargo into Earth orbit in one launch! Not only that it could also fly back down on it's own exhaust and carry cargo back to earth. It would be a true space ship, no multiple throw away stages. Just one space craft capable of doing almost anything we want it to do.

Right on!

We really need to have a serious thread on the “Liberty Ship” in your sig – the nuclearspace.com site, while big on advocacy, enthusiasm, and logos, is weak on technical discussion – that is, actual rocket science. The devil is, of course, in the details.

Originally Posted by Moontanman

Since we don't have warp fields to lower the mass or antimatter to fuel the space craft what should we turn to?

Though warp fields do seem pretty unlikely, we do have antimatter – just not much of it. Given special purpose factories and huge power supplies – almost certainly needing to be constructed in space and placed in power-rich orbits, such as near the sun or a gas giant planet – there appears to be no insurmountable barrier to having a lot of it.

Originally Posted by Moontanman

The Saturn Five previously mentioned had engines that ran on liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen.

A point of accuracy: the 2nd, 3rd stages of the Saturn V were LOX+LH2 propelled. The first stage, about 80% of the total system by mass, were LOX/Kerosene propelled. One of may good references is this astronautix.com page.