Martian Observations

In 1967, NASA started looking at methods of getting men into space without strapping them to millions of tons of high explosives. Nuclear reactors had been used with great success in naval vessals since the 1950s, so NASA figured it would do well to research the practicality of placing a nuclear reactor on a space ship. Current rocket fuel, which could be methane, liquid hydrogen, or oxygen, has only an Isp of about 340seconds, where as a nuclear powered vessel would have an Isp of about 3060seconds. Needless to say, this would lessen the need to take fuel up with the ship, making the weight less, or, alternately, leaving more room for equipment and man power.



July 21, 1969, America placed men on the moon using conventional rocket power and a Saturn V launch vessel. In 1973, the Apollo program was scrapped after the launch of SkyLab, and NASA received a devastating budget cut. The nuclear reactor research budget was cut almost completely, and the field has been dead since then.

In 2003, NASA decided they would like to go back to the moon and restarted their research into the nuclear reactor project, calling it Project Prometheus, after the wisest of Titans who granted mortals the gift of fire. However, the Columbia disaster occured, and NASA started panicking. If the shuttle had been nuclear powered, the fall out would have been disastrous. If a nuclear reactor had been on board, and the containment had been breached, and radioactive material had been allowed to fall out, a smear of radioactive particles would have stretched across the airspace of America. The consquences would have been just as bad, if not worse, as Chernobyl.

HOWEVER, this is not a reason to fear the progress in utilizing nuclear reactors for space flight. The naval submarine program has had an excellant record of success using nuclear reactors for travel. Not a single nuclear reactor has been allowed to create a dangerous environment for the crew, for neutral waters, or for any wildlife living in the area. Multiple failsafes and precautions taken on nuclear powered submarines have kept risk factors down greatly. Now, travelling in a relatively safe ocean environment is quite different than careening at escape velocity through the atmosphere of a planet into vaccuum, but that is no reason not to try.

In the 60s, the military performed experiments to monitor the fall out of nuclear weapons when detonated in high atmosphere conditions. While an explosion in a relatively low orbit would cause effects, if the rocket was sufficiently high, the radiation would disperse enough so that those on the surface would not be effected outside normal radiation exposure. Of course, a simple solution to the issue of 'could a nuclear reactor be harmful' is to not let a shuttle explode. That way, the crew is safe and so is the environment.

Nuclear power could get us to Jupiter in as little as 20 years. It could get us to Mars in three months instead of six. It would open up an entire new field of nuclear research, in making nuclear reactors safer for the general public, and help lessen our dependance on fossil fuels. The field is 40 years dead, and needs to be reevaluated, especially in the light of the climate change happening.

So after the Shuttle retires in a few months, Lockheed Martin and NASA/JPL want to replace it with the Orion craft, which was formerly known as the Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV). Lockheed Martin is in charge of its development and construction, and when they went to test its parachutes a week ago, the test ended in disaster.


image from space.com

Luckily, the craft they were testing was not the actual Orion craft. And this is actually a good thing. It's a good thing they're catching these bugs now and not later, when manned testing is going on. If humans had been in that module, they would have been killed or severely injured. Mistakes are made during the testing stages so that they don't happen when people's lives are at stake.

The 'chutes are one of the most important features of the landing module, should NASA ever decide to send men to Mars. Without functional parachutes, it's impossible to slow the craft enough for a safe descent. HOWEVER, it is possible to lessen the necessity for a parachute system by adding an aerobrake to the CEV that will help it descend into Martian atmo. If the end result is going to be Mars, then aerobraking as described in Zubrin's plan Mars Direct, will be advantageous.

Parachutes and aerobraking won't work on the moon, however, where there is no atmosphere to speak of. NASA wants to stick men back on the moon by 2020, and it's about damn time we went back there. It's been nearly 40 years since Eugene Carnan climbed back up the ladder into the lunar landing module, taking with him the legacy of being the last human to set foor on the moon. It's time we went back there, and this time, there are more contestants in the race. I've heard rumours that the Chinese are going to try and get someone up there, and the Russians are at it again. The ESA even has a plan, the Aurora Programme. Maybe if we're lucky, another space race will start, this time to Mars.