I'm 37 and it still irks me that I got a C minus for my seventh grade science fair project, because a nuclear powered space ship was "too unrealistic". This was before google and my family didn't have internet or get a computer for a few more years. I had to actually research that at the library, looking for newspaper articles, magazines and all of the single one non-fiction book that the library had that mentioned a nuclear powered space ship.

@johnstoncrawford2326

4 жыл бұрын

Wow thats too bad. Funny tjing is NAS and JPL Experimented w nuclear engines back in the 60''s and had working ptoyotypes..

@jjdogg0

4 жыл бұрын

@@johnstoncrawford2326 but could God create such a powerful nuke that even himself couldn't survive the fallout of?

@albertjackinson

4 жыл бұрын

@@jjdogg0 What does this have to do with God?

@vaishakm6

4 жыл бұрын

this is why schools kills creativity

@albertjackinson

4 жыл бұрын

@@vaishakm6 It really depends on the teacher. I have a math teacher who used to do the math for orbital trajectories for NASA. And he actively encourages my idea to build a small solid-fuel rocket. Same with my former science teacher. He encourages my more far-out conceptual ideas. So it really depends on the environment and people you are exposed to. So it's incorrect to apply generalizations in this case.

7:29 fuel is what produces energy in an engine or motor, what you mean is "propellant". In a chemical rocket, there is fuel and oxidizer, which combine and prodce propellant (exhaust gases) that contains the energy produced by combustion. In a nuclear thermal rocket, Uranium-235 (usually) is the fuel, its reaction produces heat energy which is transferred to the propellant (usually hydrogen). Not that I'm pedantic or anything ;)

7:55 - Joe, that was a destruction test, it was done purposefully just to see how much power the engine could produce. Also, the NRX A6 was called "Kiwi" because it was a flightless bird. My source - one of my professors (Robert Seale) worked on Kiwi, the test engine for NERVA. He noted that when they did the destruction test, Kiwi was producing so much power that it was literally shaking itself apart and was spitting fuel rods out the nozzle. So, it was destroyed on purpose.

@cassgraham7058

4 жыл бұрын

Kiwi was a set of experimental reactors, the A1-A3 and B1-B4E. The NRX series were developmental reactors, based on the B4D. They culminated in the XE-Prime test in 1972, which was a flight configuration test. They did some more tests on just the fuel elements after (Pewee and the Nuclear Furnace), but the configuration was good so they went the cheaper route with reusable (and cleaner) test reactors until 1974.

@joescott

4 жыл бұрын

Great info, both of you. Thanks!

@cassgraham7058

4 жыл бұрын

@@joescottI loved the video, if you wanna explore the subject more, HMU. I literally live for this stuff.

@PalimpsestProd

4 жыл бұрын

@@joescott Yeah, what Joe said!

@rpbajb

4 жыл бұрын

Second the motion.

in space we thrust? more like IN THRUST, WE TRUST

@surfside75

4 жыл бұрын

No thrust in a vacuum🤦 but, I digress😐

@joescott

4 жыл бұрын

Say that 10 times fast

@PinataOblongata

4 жыл бұрын

@@surfside75 Of course there is. Newton's 3rd law works anywhere.

@albertjackinson

4 жыл бұрын

@@joescott Definitely! How about you try saying that ("In thrust, we trust") ten times fast in the next video? It's just a thought, by the way. You don't have to comply.

@squirlmy

4 жыл бұрын

That belongs on a bumper sticker right beneath "If the van is a rockin', don't come a knockin'"

This morning I watched "Ask Joe" #1 - 24 during my morning jog. The show has come so far! Anyone who hasn't gone back to see the early stuff I highly recommend it! It's adorable and hilarious

Amazing video. There is a fusion rocket that might achieve *20% the speed of light.* Mind-blowing!

@michaeldawson6309

4 жыл бұрын

Yes mind blowingly slow.

@Liner_404

4 жыл бұрын

@@michaeldawson6309 I don't think you realise how fast light is

@michaeldawson6309

4 жыл бұрын

@@Liner_404 Actually I think I might have an idea being a communications engineer. Yes its pretty dam slow. 3x10^8ms/s in a vacuum which in galactic terms is a snails pace. Do you want to communicate with your friends on Mars? well due to the really slow induction of light thru the medium its way too slow for any meaningful communication and it only gets worse as we go further away. Come on you don't believe really that the speed quoted for light is the maximum speed we will be able to communicate in the future do you. With our very limited understanding of what matter and even electromagnetic spectrum actually is and how electromagnetic propagation works from first principles, which we don't in the mainstream. Even the boffins say that they can only explain about 4% of what's actually going on. Light speed is the rate of induction thru the medium between two points we all agree on that I hope. What the medium is, is still up for debate. However a transverse wave (of the medium) propagation has a finite velocity or rate of induction (thru the medium). Scalar or a longitudinal interaction with the medium is for all intents and purposes instant. Tesla was actually correct in his understanding of the nature of the Universe opposed to Einstien IMO and were all allowed an opinion. But that's mine. Also the speed of light for sure is not the fastest form of communication we will develop I would say I am 100% convinced of that. Way back in the 1800's the Red Indians used smoke signals now they have mobile phones guess what there must be less Indians because when I look for smoke signals there are none. I wonder if that's why SETI has not discovered any intelligent advanced life and here I mean more advanced than us.. Answer they don't use slow electromagnetic transverse waves to communicate which have the limitation of the same slow rate of induction we dumb people refer to as the speed of light. However back to the 20% of light is slow, comment. It is slow very slow for any space faring civilization just like light is slow for the purposes of communication over long distances.

@michaeldawson6309

4 жыл бұрын

Here's a good description that makes a lot of sense as to what light is and why it has a maximum velocity of propagation. kzread.info/dash/bejne/lphqq9WSfKa1isY.html It makes more sense to me than any written text available in academic circles. This is why i say interacting with the medium transversally is not the most efficient method. We just have not discovered mainstream how to improve our interaction. Time will tell.

@Cythil

4 жыл бұрын

@@michaeldawson6309 Well it is all retaliative. if you could manage to do 20% of speed of light for the full journey to Alpha Centauri then you down to less then a lifetime to get there which make colonizing plausible. Of course there is a lot more to it. I am sure some people would sign up for a generation ship. And we will likely have radical life extension within a generation. Heck the first gen of "immortals" may already be born. And so even a several hundred year journey might not seem to extreme. But everything would still be dreadfully slow by our standard. There are not a lot of theoretical devices that could beat 20%. I have heard that Kugelblitz and pure Anti-matter matter propulsion could get you close about 50% before the medium of space start make it hard to push further. Laser sails could offer a very high speed to but has it limits. That is about it if you do not go in to the realm of hypothetical space bending drives like the Alcubierre warp drive or worm holes. Both those methods being questionable if they would work (And if they do you might also have build a potential time machine.)

Hi Joe! As you were talking about getting up to 10% of lightspeed, wouldn´t it be cool with an episode on how to brake in space? What options do we have to decelerate a space ship when we get to Moon or Mars? Keep up the good work!!

@tylerj.6973

Жыл бұрын

Acceleration is the same wether you are accelerating in the forward direction to speed up or in the backward direction to slow down. So our options to decelerate are identical to our options to accelerate. In other words there is no magical way to "brake" in space

"Zoom zoom juice"

@enthusia492

4 жыл бұрын

©Mazda 2019

@Gooberpatrol66

4 жыл бұрын

For my boom-boom machine

@waylontmccann

4 жыл бұрын

Zoom zoom juice Hook it up to my boom We can rocket all night Alpha Centari in sight

@berthert3598

4 жыл бұрын

It's a scientific term.

@1_2_die2

4 жыл бұрын

I guess Tim & Scott didn't saw that one coming.

10:57 "People haven't liked the idea of sending radioactive material up into space." Sending radioactive material.....into a void of cosmic radiation and the domain of nuclear powered stars..........

@PinataOblongata

4 жыл бұрын

It's less about the void and more about the atmosphere just above us if something explodes right after launch.

Not a lot of youtubers who I like to regularly watch first thing when I wake up with my coffee. But you are one of them for sure, Joe. Keep up the great work.

@joescott

4 жыл бұрын

Thanks man!

@kontribute2795

4 жыл бұрын

Answers with Joe and a cup of Joe, perfect morning combo.

Hello Joe! Love your videos! Some days ago you were talking about all the good stuff we got here on earth from space-development, would love to see a video about that! Greetings from Italy.

My grandfather Dr Stanly V Gunn (ret) of the JPL and also the NASA director of special projects for Apollo 11,13 and a few others. His team built the F 1 rocket propulsion system for the Saturn V missions. Did extensive work on nuclear rockets. He’s in the other room right now. 97 years young.

1:50 - That was very specific.

So THAT'S where Star Trek got the name for their "impulse engines"!

@alpheusmadsen8485

3 жыл бұрын

It's also possible the technology got the name from Star Trek. Technology and fiction often feed off each other that way! (I initially said "either that", but then realized that sometimes a third thing happens: they both independently come up with the same name, because they are trying to describe similar, or sometimes even not-so-similar, things.)

Please, and I cannot stress that part enough, PLEASE make a video about the Wild West of Nuclear Projects in the '50s & '60s, we ALL need that video

Thanks for all the hard work you do, and for the prolific videos: yours is my favorite comedy/science channel on KZread. I think "curiositystream" looks awesome and is prolly well worth it for this service of quality, fact-based-yet-entertaining, science content. Thanks for the link to a free trial.

“The old boom boom machine” haha. Awesome.

Freeman Dyson: the sphere guy.

@joescott

4 жыл бұрын

It gets the idea across.

@PinataOblongata

4 жыл бұрын

@Ross Meldrum Yes, although the major part of the invention was the way the cyclonic suction worked, not the ball contraption. Fun fact, for such a brilliant guy, he's also a climate change denier.

@zapfanzapfan

4 жыл бұрын

The Vacuum cleaner is another Dyson, not Freeman.

@y.shaked5152

4 жыл бұрын

@@joescott I'm entirely cool with "the sphere guy."

@martiddy

4 жыл бұрын

I thought it was Freeman, the scientist who fight against aliens and soldiers.

Hi Joe love the channel, its getting me through one of the hardest times of my life. Even grew to have a routine of watching while i make dinner. Anyways, I was wondering if you could do a video on Loop quantum gravity, I'd like your take on it. Thanks a million and keep up the good work!

Always enjoy and learn from your videos. Would love to see a follow-up video to this that references how realistic the "Pathfinder" shuttle using a Nerva engine from the show "For All Mankind" is.

"the first rockets where made to deliver Nuclear warheads" *ANGER IN V2*

Literally no reason for an Orion spacecraft to go “nose first” into an explosion: they would simply rotate the craft 180 degrees and fire normally to slow down.

@LoneStarr1979

4 жыл бұрын

yeah... this is what he meant: -while decelerating you have to go through your own nuclear blasts.- If you use this drive to land, you end up landing in nuclear explosions. I just wondered, wether it was really considered to use an Orion drive for landing. Launching with it (as the means of propulsion) sounds already ridiculous enough to me. Edit: noticed I fell for a falacy @deceleration

@BrandonCase

4 жыл бұрын

LoneStarr1979 - I’m not sure the direction of travel would contribute much additional stress on the ship: the propulsion/shield platform already protects the ship from the blast, which propagates far more quickly than you’re traveling, and both the explosion and ship are within the same inertial frame.

@LoneStarr1979

4 жыл бұрын

@@BrandonCase I just thought a second time about this ... in space there is no difference between acceleration and deceleration... my fault. (at least as long as you are not aproaching relativistic speeds...) But the issue with landing (which was the one Joe talked about) remains: You land in your own braking-wasteland... as *most* places where you perform a landing have something like a ground which can be contamined.

@Cythil

4 жыл бұрын

As far as I understand is not intend to land. But you would have smaller crafts that do the landing if you need to. Trying to land it using nuclear proportional would likely not have work out well. But the biggest version that was envisioned would easily be able carry the need landing crafts. After all the hard part is actually getting in to space. The really crazy thing is actually lunching it since that actually means detonating nuclear blasts under it in atmo. Now apparently the fallout would not be a super huge deal compare to all other nuclear tests and such. The Scientist behind it did actually worry about this and did a lot of calculations on acceptable cancer risk as such and compared it to other human endeavours. But still pretty darn crazy.

@Giulliss

4 жыл бұрын

@@Cythil the orion spaceship could be built and assembled in space. So the nuclear explosions were ouutside our atmosphere. It would ferry people to other worlds but never land or contact the worlds.

Love your content bro! I'm excited about our future!

And love, love your videos. Thanks man. Very appreciated. Greetings from Holland

I’m now going to use zoom zoom juice every time I’m talking about rocket fuel.

@dashpig1

4 жыл бұрын

Not only about rockets!

@jayknight139

4 жыл бұрын

Agreed. Easy to say and it gets the point across in a simple way.

@jjohnston94

4 жыл бұрын

I prefer the more scientific term "motion lotion".

@Bacopa68

4 жыл бұрын

It will take a lot of zoom zoom juice to get to Jup-a-jup.

@bradlemmond

4 жыл бұрын

@@Bacopa68 I see you are a person of taste and sophistication as well.

Your sub count seems to have some of that zoom zoom juice.

Great job as always. Thanks Joe.

The Direct Fusion Drive being developed at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory seems to be advancing well.

...just ONE QUESTION if I may!...what's "SOCCER" ? ...

@3VILmonkey

4 жыл бұрын

It’s a game American children play.

Weird. the video started midway through as if I had started watching it already though I just turned on KZread after a several hour break and the video was published minutes ago.

@likebot.

4 жыл бұрын

Are you watching on a touch-screen unit? My laptop has "touch" and sometimes the screen acts like I randomly tapped a spot, sometimes advancing or rewinding. Other times it annoys me by closing my browser.

@desertratnt-7849

4 жыл бұрын

Cody'sLab quatam entanglement ✌️

@RED5AND

4 жыл бұрын

Sounds a bit sus

@Gooberpatrol66

4 жыл бұрын

kzread.info/dash/bejne/mnV1zqaocde8Z7w.html

@RED5AND

4 жыл бұрын

If that happened to me I'll investigate a small amount

Hey man I love your videos, love how they combine humor and learning!!! Have you ever heard of the center of the universe in Tulsa Oklahoma? I think it might make a good video for you

I always love 💕 coming back to your channel!

"... fusion drive, when we get that technology down. You know, in 20 years or so." LOL Fusion drive... what a dream. ;-)

@LoganMaclaren

4 жыл бұрын

@@professorbrainyspecs7366 , you know, it's probably the best idea, but maybe not the best choice to go to Mars, let's say. Because of the energetic demands of this technology, off course.

@LoganMaclaren

4 жыл бұрын

@@professorbrainyspecs7366 so was I, I thought it showed across... Anyway, assuming we could choose, I think the Star Wars way would be faster. Just saying. Pick your favorite rock now, I bet there will be some online linching pretty soon... 😅

"Did someone say nukes?"No,no they didn't

Thanks for doing this video joe!

Thanks Joe, very interestng and educational. Top class! Would have liked to hear how fast the thermal nuclear rockets would go and how long they'd last for. Surprised you didn't mention that.

"Nerva project" we were that close....

@zevkurtzman8108

4 жыл бұрын

Is this an eva reference

@stardolphin2

4 жыл бұрын

@@zevkurtzman8108 NERVA = Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Application (also Roman emperor Marcus Cocceius Nerva) We were indeed only a few years from a flyable engine, but we stopped work on it, because we stopped work on any of the programs (nuclear shuttle between LEO and Lunar orbit, Mars missions) that could use it.

@calvingreene90

4 жыл бұрын

Just if the Russians landed on the moon on the same day as us. Yes, I am American.

@SukacitaYeremia

4 жыл бұрын

@@stardolphin2 It is an Eva reference, but thanks anyway!

@ronschlorff7089

4 жыл бұрын

@@stardolphin2 yup, it seems we lost our nerva (and funding) for further deep space travel, after the Apollo moon landings! ; )

I need to get my boom boom machine going with some zoom zoom juice.

@ronschlorff7089

4 жыл бұрын

Hmmmm, seems to me, the Very Last Thing you want connected with any rocket is "Boom Boom"!!!!!! LOL. ;D

Nuclear rocket propulsion would probably be a feasible method of transport outside of the earth/ moon orbital path. Probably not a good idea to use within the atmosphere or in the orbital plane. There is lots of radiation in space. So a little bit more wouldn't make much difference.

"That's a spicy meatball!" That's so cool you were aware of that commercial (Alka Selzer), since i'm pretty sure it was before your time; but I remember it and it was a great reference with that nuclear detonation. All good wishes!

Joe: "That would be like a giant skidmark all the way across the continent" Me: "Leave my underwear out of your videos!"

@dunneincrewgear

4 жыл бұрын

Brown by name, Brown by nature...

@martiddy

4 жыл бұрын

@@dunneincrewgear lmao!

@sneeringimperialist6667

4 жыл бұрын

Every time you write one of these comments, it's literally a Brown note...

Lovely job mATE really enjoy how you keep me watching with so many choices these days you on TOP and I wanna thank you for your time !!!

@joescott

4 жыл бұрын

Thanks man!

Thank you my man, your videos helps me to think and give my energy to cool things and not becoming joker.

Love your show Joe!

Space Tug? Sounds like a sci-fi porn movie.

@theunknownshadowish

4 жыл бұрын

And Space Balls is any different?

@45asunder1

4 жыл бұрын

@@theunknownshadowish space balls is a sports movie of course

I heard "spacey meatball" lol appropriate

@joescott

4 жыл бұрын

It works on so many levels...

@ronschlorff7089

4 жыл бұрын

@@joescott actually "Plop Plop fizz fizz" in the really old commercial "worked on many levels" too; particularly if you got a hold of some bad chili,... and were consigned to counting the tiles on your bathroom floor,... if you get my drift!! ;D lol

Excellently written and presented. I appreciate the thought out arguments, and hope that humanity gets its act together with the technology capable of both saving and/or ending us all.

One thing I realized about the ion engines (and ideally I think photon-engines) and something that noone actually mentioned in any of the many vids on the subject is the Speed at which the jet particles (generally speaking) can be ejected in order to get momentum in the counter direction. One of the main struggles with any engine really, but especially a space one, is the limitation of the mass of the load that a spaceship can carry. For example a chemical rocket would eject the particles at around the speed of their explosive (or burning) expansion. Momentum measures the 'motion content' of an object, and is based on the product of an object's mass and velocity. So chemical rockets throw lots of mass but at relatively low speeds, thus requiring you to carry a heavy load in the form of fuel. Ion engines eject their fuel (ie ions) at much much higher speeds, thus the efficiency for the mass of their fuel is way higher. If there's a fuel that can be entirely converted to photons, would be ideal since photons travel at the maximum possible speed and as we know they also have momentum, so such fuel would reach the maximum possible efficiency. Chemical rockets have a maximum Isp of 500 seconds, with an exhaust velocity of 4,900 m/s A nuclear fission engine with 1,000 Isp will produce twice the speed of exhausted gases: 9,800 m/s (from sciencenode.org/feature/i-need-more-speed-scotty.php) Ions I think are ejected at speeds dozens of times lower than the speed of light (but at least they allow to use the heavy part of the fuel - the photons) Speed of light as we know is 2.998e+8m/s which is about 30590 times higher

instantly press the like button, why would you do that you may say... Because it's Joe Scott and mars!

@chanceDdog2009

4 жыл бұрын

5000 views in the first 10 min. Awesome

So you're saying we should build an orion drive from mined asteroids, then fuel it via chemical rockets from Earth?

@omarcarrero3623

4 жыл бұрын

The biggest advantage of it is thst u can put huge payloads in orbit easily

@MrGonzonator

4 жыл бұрын

@@omarcarrero3623 well yes, except for the mountains of radioactive waste it leaves in its wake. The other advantage is moving at extreme speed. If asteroid mining is viable then moving large lumps of heavy equipment into space will be redundant. The only things that need to come up from the Earth would be high value goods such as people and nuclear fuel.

@joethestrat

4 жыл бұрын

I volunteer as tribute.

I really enjoy your videos thank you!

4:32 "Tha'ssa spicy meatball!" I need a t-shirt with that at the top, and a nuclear explosion below it

Woot. Got my call out. ;) Such a geek I am...

@D0li0

4 жыл бұрын

Oh.. ya.. great show, just assume that is a given. ;)

@RobertHildebrandt

4 жыл бұрын

Nice^^ I did not get mine yet. How long did you have to wait?

@D0li0

4 жыл бұрын

@@RobertHildebrandt 2-4 weeks?

@RobertHildebrandt

4 жыл бұрын

​@@D0li0 Thanks :)

24 out of 40 times, "60% of the time it works every time"

@dennisrichards2540

4 жыл бұрын

Burgundy - "That doesn't make sense"

@joescott

4 жыл бұрын

Project Sex Panther.

@KaiLastOfTheBrunnen-G

4 жыл бұрын

@@joescott stings the nostrils, in a good way

Another great video Joe.

Great insight

Click like, THEN press play😅🤷🏻‍♂️

@burtlangoustine1

4 жыл бұрын

You one of those goons who pre-order, on faith alone? Yeah thanks for helping ruin the world.

@pyrofania

4 жыл бұрын

Yeah! Let the world burn ☺️😅🤷🏻‍♂️

@livethefuture2492

4 жыл бұрын

some channels have high standards. consistent good quality content you dont need to watch the video for it to be good.

@ntactime_w3488

4 жыл бұрын

@@burtlangoustine1 youre absolutely right - look back to the game Anthem for reference. Or GR breakpoint? Or anything in history available for pre-order?

@joescott

4 жыл бұрын

That seems like the correct order of things.

At 4:33 Imao

I’ve watch your videos for a year. Thanks so much.

Yeah, I'm looking forward to fusion drives, like the ones they use on The Expanse. Good show. I like that it has near limitless fuel, and that they use a 1G constant burn to provide "artificial" gravity for their ships.

@xponen

4 жыл бұрын

sounds impossible since even a NERVA reactor reach a temperature "1/3rd of the sun" ( 7:40 ) so what engine more efficient than that? the sun itself? it will glow red like a sun?

"The Boom-Boom Machine"! The funniest thing you said in the whole video.

@joescott

4 жыл бұрын

Dude I can't even take credit for that. That was its actual nickname back in the day, according to what I read anyway.

@claudiolluberes111

4 жыл бұрын

Zoom-zoom juice was the one that got me.

Love the fusion joke 😂

@davidroddini1512

4 жыл бұрын

Alex Wingfield it is no joke. Fusion will be available in 20 years. We just have a notoriously bad record of picking the year to start the countdown.

Nice update!

The 'hybrid' concept is the best choice. Chem-to-orbit, then Nuke for the journey, then Chem for landing. Radiation problems, both from ambient and from the reactor(s) are solvable. Yup ... that's the one! Of course, landing should probably make use of hypergolics because there's no cryogenic storage issues as opposed to LH2 and LOX ... But those hypergolics are corrosive and nasty reactants ... BRILLIANT!!!

I'm sad you left out the possibility of nuclear powered ion drives.

@claudiolluberes111

4 жыл бұрын

Well he mention the russian nuclear reactor to power spaceships so we could assume the electricity for the ion drives would come from there.

@eaglegrip6879

4 жыл бұрын

Don't worry, be happy. :0)

@janstankiewicz9816

4 жыл бұрын

seems like he pushed ions out for the sake of this videos momentum. ...wait, is he an ion drive himself?

This isn’t rocket surgery, Dave. Get with the program.

@PinataOblongata

4 жыл бұрын

It's not even soccer surgery!

@janstankiewicz9816

4 жыл бұрын

B-but... I'm a laser barista!

@JosePineda-cy6om

4 жыл бұрын

The funniest thing is that THERE IS indeed such a thing as rocket surgery...

@PinataOblongata

4 жыл бұрын

@@JosePineda-cy6om As in surgeons who work aboard rockets, or just "engineers"?

@JosePineda-cy6om

4 жыл бұрын

@@PinataOblongata Astronauts who need to do a space walk and use an actual knife to cut the several layers of thermal insulation, then the layers of anti-micro meteorite protection, in order to patch a hole in the hull from the outside - Scott Manley once did a video on the only operation of this kind ever to be actually done, a realy "rocket surgery" :-D

Very illuminating!

Also very efficient: plasma thrusters... at least as long as you have access to Power via photovoltaic or rtg.

@theunknownshadowish

4 жыл бұрын

I am in the process of working on something with Photovoltaic

Topic of the next OLF episode: The new nuclear aerospike powered Tesla XE. It works perfectly 24 out of 40 times.

@janstankiewicz9816

4 жыл бұрын

Does it come with Mars tires? yes it does. yes indeed.

Fusion is always 20 years away. - Jesus

tkx for CuriosityStream info!!! i love it so bad!!!!

Specific impulse is really just a stand-in for the effective exhaust velocity. Its advantage is that it is directly comparable between imperial and metric designs, as both systems use seconds as a common unit. Multiply the specific impulse of a rocket by G (9.8m/s) and you will get the effective exhaust velocity of the rocket, which is a much more intuitive value to explain mass efficiency of rockets.

I mean Fusion is just 30 years away :-)

wouldnt you send the reactor up separately from the fuel and put the fuel in a container that could survive reentry and or a rocket failure? also couldnt they stage fuel along orbital path so that elons ship refuels mid journey to make the journey quicker?

@terrelshumway427

4 жыл бұрын

Any vehicle that would survive reentry with the fuel would also survive reentry with the reactor. Fueling a reactor is something that you want to go perfectly. No reason not to do it on Earth. This might make sense 50-100 years from now when we have uranium mines on the moon, but not now. We need baby steps first. Nuclear reactors typically go decades before needing to be refueled. This is the whole point. Staging along the orbital path requires you to travel the orbital path, and then successfully rendezvous with the staging points, which is ... *way more complicated* than necessary and provides very little benefit. For chemical rockets, it might make sense, if, and only if, you are making/mining the fuel near the fuel depot.

@electronresonator8882

4 жыл бұрын

just make sure it will never fail during the launch or reentry, or the effect of that failure will trigger world war 3 there's reason why people don;t use nuclear fireworks during new year event

@Bryan-Hensley

4 жыл бұрын

Abort system could be used for the nuclear items on take off

@livethefuture2492

4 жыл бұрын

correct me if i am wrong, but havent the soviet already done some experiments with nuclear reactors in space. i believe thay had some spy satellite/space station concept involving nuclear reactors which was done in secret.

@MrMattumbo

4 жыл бұрын

The Soviets already launched a nuclear reactor into space, they had a plan for it to burn up on reentry but if I'm remembering correctly it didn't go to plan like they hoped. Either way, launching a fully fueled reactor is probably the best idea, just make sure that launch is on a well-proven rocket and there's nothing but ocean downrange if something fails. Then if you're returning from another planet you can jettison the reactor off into deep space after you're lined up for an Earth capture, no need to bring it back near the planet.

Joe one of the things you should also look at while comparing rocket motors is their thrust. Its not that important in orbit, but its super important when getting to orbit in the first place. You can have a rocket engine with a super good ISP but it cant even lift its own weight meaning it is useless when it has to fight gravity.

Great video!

...because the aliens on the moon told Neil Armstrong we had to stay off the moon until 2030!

@rpbajb

4 жыл бұрын

Why 2030? Because climate change will have killed us all by then?

"Nuclear Wessels"

Interesting. Was trying to fathom this the other night.

Thanks for my mondays dose of knowledge.

Was one of those Patreon names an Archer reference? Yes it was, Other Barry. Yes, it was.

It’s pronounced nucular: nu-cju-luhr

@likebot.

4 жыл бұрын

sarcasm is not carried well in text.

@tomf3150

4 жыл бұрын

Lrrr of Omicron Perseï 8 wants to know your location.

Kind of surprised you didn't mention the USN for their experience in using nuclear to run large vehicles (aircraft carrier, anyone) for decades without refueling or accidents.

There's also the problem that when you fire an NTR radioactive particles come out the exhaust, so you don't want to be firing that here on Earth. It would have to be ferried up to space and used there. Perhaps something like the Starship but with the vacuum optimised Raptors swapped out for an NTR.

@totalermist

4 жыл бұрын

Fortunately that's not an issue - NTR engines have a terrible thrust -to-weight ratio and wouldn't be able to lift off from Earth anyway.

@terrelshumway427

4 жыл бұрын

The rocket is designed to heat the exhaust without making it radioactive, but a *small amount* of radioactive products will likely leak. This is not the huge problem that people think it is. large.stanford.edu/courses/2011/ph241/hamerly1/ (see "Radiation and Safety" section)

@hydrochloricacid2146

4 жыл бұрын

Fortunately these engines don't have the TWR to lift a spacecraft from earth anyway, so they'd only be used in space

Yes I've been waiting for this

One of my favorite channels!

Thanks Joe

Thanks for sharing this interesting video 👍 Thanks for sharing 👍😀

One of my best finds on KZread, really great channel in every respect! Have you done one on Quantum Entanglement yet?-it's a Peach!

When I worked at Westinghouse my semi-retired emeritus colleague worked on NERVA as a chemical engineer. He said the biggest technical problems he had was that in the event of an explosion launching with chemical rockets to above the atmosphere, the fuel pellets would disperse but not disintegrate and disperse. Strangely, The heating of the plasma and the shock wave around it gave some protection to the pellets so you would have large radioactive clumps landing on the earth's surface. Without finding high-grade thorium or uranium ores on the moon, I think the safety aspect of such a large power reactor would not be acceptable. Launching from moon feasible but from the earth, the explosion of a radioactive reactor core over the Atlantic and East Florida doesn't sound too appealing to me.

@amirabudubai2279

4 жыл бұрын

There are safe ways to get large amounts of nuclear power into space. The easiest way is to send it in small amounts and in containers that will withstand the blast of a failed rocket. This would add the complication of having to assemble the reactor in space, but if we are gonna do anything that actually needs nuclear rockets, then we need to get better at orbital manufacturing anyways.

For a short time that type of propulsion was considered for planes and, more specifically, the Air Force SAC during the Cold War. There were two approaches, one direct and the other indirect. The direct was much more efficient and lighter, but it also expelled radioactive material into the atmosphere. The indirect method avoided that problem, but created another, namely the plumbing which included a heat exchanger. With those problems and the development of ICBMs that project was eventually abandoned. In space of course you don't need to worry about poisoning an atmosphere.

One qualifier of Specific Impukse is also that it is only the thrust in the direction that you wish to go that is counted.

Watching this and realizing how much Kerbals have taught me. BTW: Are all the launches after the first landing nothing? They did what they could at the time, then after that interest fell off. Love your stuff man, you er one of the best channels on YOutube.

@PinataOblongata

4 жыл бұрын

Yep, that good ol' NERV with 800 Isp. Awkward length, but so efficient!

5:25 This is along the lines of what I think would be an interesting idea to explore: An underground chamber with a piston upon which the rocket sits. A thermonuclear explosion is set off in the chamber and forces the piston along a guided track accelerating upwards until it's released from the in-ground launcher like a bullet.

@janstankiewicz9816

4 жыл бұрын

Hey, that's a fun idea; but consider the fact that you need to limit your acceleration in order to preserve the payload, such as delicate humans, who mostly don't do very well above 3g's of acceleration. You'd need a speed of 11 200 meters per second to reach escape velocity of earth, which would take a straight track length of over 4 000 kilometers (or, 2 500 miles) using 3g's of acceleration (rough estimates used in calculation). I recommend looking up Isaac Arthur (if you can get past his speech impediment, this guys youtube channel is amazeballs in terms of learning about scientific concepts. Here, try this one: kzread.info/dash/bejne/hqCkqNynj7yTdpM.html

@easymac79

4 жыл бұрын

I did consider that, and I know this is all far fetched. I was thinking either springs, hydraulics, or a fluid coupling like a torque converter. I'm replying from bed because I can't sleep, pardon any autocorrect mistakes, no keyboard. In the latter idea, the explosion still takes place underground, but drives the Piston against a hydraulic cylinder which will force fluid into a giant, highly precisely machined torque converter which will absorb and transfer the energy in a more controlled manner. Was also thinking it would be better for cargo with which we build a larger interplanetary ship in space and then send humans. Ive always preferred the assembly method versus launching bigger and bigger rockets.

_"Orion the Boom Boom Machine"_ -- I am SO stealing that...😊

New word alert @10:51. Exposure + Explosion = Exposion? I like it.

Could you do a deeper video on Project Orion?

4:30 1994, Jim Carrey. Love your channel!

I like how some people refer to launching spacecraft to other destinations in the solar system with chemical-powered rockets as "throwing" them. For me it's a more evocative description of what's happening vs the bullet analogy.

Love the videos, keep em comin plz. I have a question that u might want to turn into a video. Why don’t we see time dilation at the LHC ? If I’m under informed and they do have to deal with it then how is it dealt with. Also maybe u can check out that when the Higgs boson was discovered the 2 detectors measured different weights, from what I’ve heard maybe the particles were entangled or something. Boom boom to the moon moon.