The Golden Age of Atomic Power in Space
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It is still true that the available technologies appear to be confined to rockets, but there is evidence that chemical rockets can't do the job. They got us to the moon, barely, and with nothing to spare. And that access was not cheap. The math shows that only nuclear technology has the raw power needed to lift heavy payloads into space at reasonable cost, using what we know and can apply right now.
Recently, I came across an interview with Dr. Brian Dunne, chief experimentalist of Project Orion, that I taped while I was science editor for my college newspaper. I didn't mind meandering, and he didn't, either, so the interview, presented in two parts, had to be trimmed to the essentials. Part I, which follows, reveals some of Dunne's perceptions, and those of his era, about nuclear power. The scene opens at Jackass Flats, Nevada, site of NASA's nuclear engine for rocket vehicle application (NERVA) program.
Dunne: Jackass Flats was a separate facility used for the NERVA program reactor systems. These were, of course, the nuclear propulsion systems using hydrogen as a propellant. They had a huge aluminum shed to house the reactor, which could be rolled out on railroad tracks. One time they were very astounded because they had rolled this reactor out and left it with the core open. It has a big open core because of the tremendous throughput of gases. They were really shocked the next morning because they thought, well good God, if the rain had made it supercritical it would have blown it to a million pieces. Fortunately it didn't rain, but it really scared the hide off them. Water is a neutron moderator and it (the reactor) is pretty close to critical anyhow because it has to be.
It's a wasteland (Jackass Flats). We were looking at it as a potential test ground for Orion experiments.
LW: When was that?
Dunne: This must have been late 1958 or 1959. I remember the trip there with Taylor and Dyson especially because we were contracting with EG&G to do some instrumentation work for possible tests. They did a lot of support work out there, and they had a pretty big facility to cover the NERVA tests and huge tank farms, gas bottles, you can't imagine, just acres of compressed gas and manifolds. And all this was piped through the reactor. Tremendous hardwire instrumentation system back to this huge data recording facility they had.
