3 ms·
I guess plutonium is right out then. I hope they make exceptions for sufficiently safe launch vehicles that put their payloads beyond Earth orbit.
by hirundo 5y ago
I guess plutonium is right out then. I hope they make exceptions for sufficiently safe launch vehicles that put their payloads beyond Earth orbit.
- eesmith 5y agoThe article mentions an exception to allow mercury use: “The Minamata Convention on Mercury seeks to eliminate all mercury uses where technically-achievable non-mercury alternatives are available,” By comparison, plutonium is not particularly toxic. I see no reason a similar treaty wouldn't have a similar exception.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- db48x 5y agoPlutonium is not a propellant.
- hirundo 5y agoSee e.g. Project Orion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propulsion) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propuls...
- db48x 5y agoIt’s still not a propellant, and use of nuclear explosives in the atmosphere or near earth orbit is already covered by other treaties.
- skykooler 5y agoIt's technically a propellant - the reaction mass is the spent fragments of each explosion.
- abracadaniel 5y agoThere’s nuclear thermal rocket engines that have been explored, but those don’t actually use the nuclear fuel as a propellant either. They use hydrogen. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NERVA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NERVA
- db48x 5y agoNASA was even beginning to study gas–core nuclear engines, where the nuclear fuel is a superheated gas or plasma. Some open–cycle designs where proposed, but NASA choose to study closed–cycle engines such as the nuclear lightbulb engine instead because they don’t leak fissile fuel into the propellant stream. Leaving aside the safety problems, it is uneconomical to lift a fuel into space only to have it escape the rocket unused.
- Kim_Bruning 5y agoPlutonium should be ok? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_generator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_ge...