[extropy-chat] SPACE: nuclear rockets

[Robert J. Bradbury]

The interesting topic of nuclear rocket propulsion has come up
on /. this week.  One of the primary sites cited is having
trouble serving up pages (apparently due to MS Internet Server
(cough) limitations/constraints).

/. article:

http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/01/13/1816227&mode=thread

But the interesting stuff is here:
http://www.nuclearspace.com/

In particular:
http://www.nuclearspace.com/a_liberty_ship.htm
  which probably will not be served; but the google cache has it using:
http://216.239.41.104/search?q=cache:8gxZzURFpo4J:www.nuclearspace.com/a_liberty_ship.htm+&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

though you can switch to pages 2-14 (and navigate more easily) from
http://www.nuclearspace.com/a_liberty_ship2.htm

It discusses towards the end of the article a nuclear rocket design
capable of lifting 1000 tons into orbit (approx. 100x current lift
capacities).  The discussion seems authoritative but I am not
qualified to judge nuclear or rocket engineering methods.
I'd be interested in comments by hard core engineering types
on the design.

Robert