[ExI] New nuclear rocket engine design

[spike at rainier66.com]

...> On Behalf Of Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat


>...Yes, one step at a time. At least, the ISS might be used as a 'dry dock'
to build nuclear propulsion rockets on orbit for interplanetary missions. In
that way, maybe the ISS wouldn't have been an almost complete waste of
effort.

Regards,  Dan


Dan the ISS is in the wrong orbit for that purpose, most unfortunately.  

In 1989, when the station underwent a major redesign, one of the changes
that slipped under the radar is the orbit change from 27 degrees to 51.6,
which lets the commies launch from their home turf.  At the time, we
realized the station wouldn't be used for an on-orbit assembly facility
because of that high orbit.  

That same redesign took away any possibility of the station being open-ended
for later expansion.  It occurred to a lot of us that what was left of ISS
wasn't worth doing from a science POV.  I decided to move out of that
project and work my way into controls engineering, which turned out to be a
good move.

spike