Looks cool, but lets hope it works better than that nuclear power bomber they had back in the day.

It's got to be an improvement on our nuclear aircraft powerplants

Someone needs to build these things, and if not us, the Russians are a good choice.

Why do all these recent articles keep referring to a "space race"? We don't need another space race, the media shouldn't be implanting it into the public's mind. International cooperation should be driving space exploration.

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You can't really tell the difference between drunken rambling and sober blogging.

it cant be a space race. nobody can afford the funding levels Nasa would be able to harness in such a race. the article spins it more in the direction of Russia wanting to have a sell able in space nuclear reactor system ready for the day when they become needed. that way they would have a product to sell to others who do have the funds to go anywhere.

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Signature? Why?

Yet this was your first post...

About time. They've only been working on it since 1965.

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If I set the budget, we'd have Ares and more. Unfortunately, I don't set the budget, and Ares is just too expensive and too far out for us to accomplish our goals within the budget we were given.

If we halt the ISS, all versions of Ares, and transport Orion and Altair aboard DIRECTv3's Jupiter family of Shuttle-Derived Launch Vehicles, we just might make it back to the Moon by 2020.

Oh no. We absolutely want the average american yokel to believe the pinkos are shifting up the gears and setting up nucular space bases to bomb the land of the free.

The last time it happened we got Apollo - can't be bad if it happens again.

I'm not sure if it is a mini NERVA or just using a nuclear reactor for ionic propulsion, is not NERVA way already discarded due mass/energy ratios?

Competition is a great driver of accomplishment ... it's human nature. If the Outer Space Treaty etc. hadn't happened, and the US and Russia had competed to claim the Moon etc., we'd have a lot more space infrastructure now. A new space race is the best thing that could happen for the various space programs...

The end of the last space race effectively stalled development of manned spaceflight, The Russians are still using an upgraded version of the old Proton/Soyuz system and Ares 1-X was the first new vehicle from NASA in 30 YEARS. A little healthy competition is a good thing.

As a short-sighted supporter of manned spaceflight I just like pretty fireworks and I also think the Space Treaty should be dumped. The day a country can claim a piece of land up there is the day things will accelerate.

Columbus didn't endure two months of grueling sea hardships just to lay down a flag and bring back a few rocks...

I hope it's true, but I would not bet on it. I have always hoped for someone to build and fly a nuclear powered spacecraft out of Earth orbit. Since the US seems to want to stick to conventional chemical rockets for space operations beyond Earth; I think a little competition from someone who is willing to actually develop and fly, nuclear rocket technology, is a good thing.

We don't need foot races either. Lets get rid of the Olympics and focus on three-legged walking.

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"What you think you thought you saw you did not see." Agent J, MiB - Manhatten Bureau

Alright, I guess I'm being sort of idealistic. I suppose a space race would help, even if it isn't really right. I do believe that the outer space treaty slowed down a lot of space development, even if it isn't obligatory like I brought up in the other thread.

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You can't really tell the difference between drunken rambling and sober blogging.

Oh, yeah, big help. Monkey no want banana until other monkey try to grab it. Monkey make face, growl, "No! MY BANANA!" Monkeys make noise, jump up and down, drop banana to chase each other.

Observer picks up banana, makes a few notes and walks away, smiling.

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If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers.

the observer is also a monkey. so that smile is one of recognition i gather.

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Signature? Why?

If the world was the way it "should be", there's be six-and-a-half billion worlds, because everyone has different idea of how it "should be".

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
"The Mayan symbol for "book" looks a lot like a triple hamburger, but I've never seen them claiming it as proof the Mayans had Big Macs." - KaiYeves
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

Hmmmm...these so-called 'pinkos' (bad termage, for sure) are the same folks that will be, most likely, launching American personnel to ISS for who knows how long. Think getting into a 'race' with a 'major supplier' (in so many words) is a good idea at this point?? America is in no position to be shunning those they are dependent upon. Just something to think about

Alex

Maybe if we made the competition Earth versus the NEO. Fake a NEO close encounter due in a hundred years.

As much as I enjoy competition and believe on some level it does drive some problems to solutions but a scientist is there for the information, the proof. If information was open wouldn't we come to conclusions faster? I am also aware of the idealism involved but shouldn't we all strive for perfection? I'm different .... trippin.

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Education is proper means...

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At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

One Earth, One Sky - IYA 2009
All moderation in purple

I believe nuclear propulsion does need to be seriously looked at for any manned missions to Mars; whether you're talking about direct nuclear propulsion or using a reactor to provide power for an ion drive anything that cuts the flight times has to be worthwhile looking at.

If people in one country are anti-nuclear power for space, then maybe another country can launch that particular module.

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"What you think you thought you saw you did not see." Agent J, MiB - Manhatten Bureau

I think you might have missed the tongue firmly lodged into the cheek.

From what I can tell, it looks like the actual development is to be on a 'competitive basis' with RSC Energia http://www.roscosmos.ru/NewsDoSele.asp?NEWSID=8002 (used Google to translate it, fwiw)

Does this indicate that the true 'type' of nuclear propulsion has yet to be determined? And that so far it is just 'talk' with nothing else really having been done, so to speak? How plausible to make it work with the 'concept design' of this -> http://www.energia.ru/english/energia/mars/concept.html - lose the solar and use nuclear instead maybe?

Very interesting timing/location of the announcement, at an awards ceremony for literary contestants. Is that not unusual, or is it business-as-usual for Russia? Seems kinda unusual to me, but I see things as an American, of course.

Alex

Anybody got about $600 million? I'm a little short this week.

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We want our children to go to the planets. Burt Rutan 6/21/04 K.I.L.L. S.M.U.R.F.S.
Tuckers! Automotive Oddities! Building my hot rod with the help of the intarwebs Those who would delay scientific progress for a little temporary prosperity shall have neither. MachineCast Save the planet, by leaving it! "To be second in space is to be second in everything," LBJ.

More on the engine here
http://www.bautforum.com/archive/index.php/t-46715.html
Will Russia's Next Rocket be Nuclear?

Drawings of the ship under the bimodal section here:
http://nickd.freehostia.com/OrbiterV...vprojects.html
http://nickd.freehostia.com/OrbiterVault/ovnews.html
http://nickd.freehostia.com/OrbiterVault/mars.html
http://nickd.freehostia.com/OrbiterV...downloads.html

Other links from here: Advanced Future Space Propulsion