2 ms·

See e.g. Project Orion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propulsion) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propuls...

• db48x 5y ago
  It’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 ago
    It's technically a propellant - the reaction mass is the spent fragments of each explosion.
  • abracadaniel 5y ago
    There’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 ago
      NASA 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.