8.28.19:
This seems like an exciting possibility. But you know what they say-- "No bucks, no Buck Rogers". It is a political problem as much as a scientific and engineering problem. Unless you get a champion for this as a program, then it goes nowhere.
8.27.19:
This concept uses fission fragments as the reaction mass. Yes, you read that correctly. Fission fragments.
This is a scary thing to the public, and that is why it most likely will not be pursued. However, if you were to do this on the far side of the moon, well, you might be in business.
Mr. Reid, as he is known, believes that the technology to do this exists today. When he wrote that article, it was in 2012.
A bit more digging unearthed ( no pun intended ) a pdf file that had a bit more info. I found that it doesn't scale down as well as scaling up. Consequently, one could wonder if a device such as this would be practical for near Earth missions. I'm thinking of trips to Mars or Venus. Certainly a trip to Jupiter or Saturn could be more feasible. But the missions mentioned are well outside the solar system, but the thing is not practical for trips to the nearest star.
NASA studied this concept and published a paper on it here.
And more here.
The fission-fragment rocket | https://t.co/k5c4tZXPd1 https://t.co/57U5VmnFJf— Greg Meadows (@BootsandOilBlog) August 25, 2019
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