RE: starship-design: HOTOL SeaDragon idea.

["L. Parker" <lparker@cacaphony.net>]

All-

Time for a reality check...

If you are going to even think about nuclear powered rockets in any
capacity, you might as well go for broke. DUMBO was the (potential)
successor to NERVA and is easily buildable today. It has both sufficient ISP
and sufficiently high thrust (it takes both) to make an SSTO design doable
with LARGE payload capacities. No need for mid-orbit tug transfers, etc.

Now for the reality part, if you have to fight tooth and nail just to get an
RTG mission like Cassini off the ground, getting routine flights to orbit
(or mid-orbit transfers) with a nuclear powered rocket are, frankly,
impossible.

Lots of scientists and engineers have run the numbers and the risk is low,
the amount of contamination if the worst happens is low, in fact, this
should be a no brainer. Unfortunately, the anti-nuclear lobby has done a
VERY good job of playing to the public's fear. So much so that I suspect
that even if we were to come up with some sort of cold fusion
non-radioactive engine, it STILL wouldn't be politically acceptable.

Might as well wish for anti-gravity, at least the public thinks that is
cool!

Lee