/sci/ - Science & Math

>>12178854
Are you talking about the "lightbulb" drive? If so, then yes it's probably about as good as you'll get with an inherently safe nuclear drive.

>>11795860
You could also do an closed-cycle gas core NTPR, very, very small quantity of gaseous UF6 injected into a solid quartz "lamp", spits out a massive amount of UV which then superheats the propellant, usually LH2 but I don't think it fundamentally needs to be. Not as much ISP as an NSWR but still more than enough to get you anywhere you'd want to go and it won't eject a plume of fission fragments.
Super safe, very small amounts of nuclear material, very mechanically simple.

>>11576724
Imagine being welded into your house but there's also ten other people sharing it, you get privacy only when you sleep or shit, and if you were to open a window you'd die an extremely painful death by simultaneously asphyxiating, vomiting, pissing yourself and shitting your asshole inside out. Submariners are rigorously psychologically screened and trained to cope with that kind of stress, I imagine some version of that will be necessary for non-nuclear spacers too, maybe even have low doses of tranquilizers and anti-anxiety meds in the food and water too. NSWRs are basically baby torch drives and already well within our technological capability, same for Atomic lightbulb rockets, shit for TWR but higher ISP, fine for runs all the way out to the Jovian system probably, ideally you'd want a closed cycle gas core NTPR, a very small amount of U235 fluoride salt gas is injected into a solid quartz sphere contained within a berylium reflector chamber, hydrogen is injected to cool the sphere, which is partially opaque to some of the radiation but not UV, which superheats the hydrogen and gives you your thrust. Similar principle to an atomic lightbulb but much better TWR and similar ISP. It's very clean, the reflector chamber contains radiation in the core, and there's no direct contact between the very small quantity of nuclear fuel and the propellant, if core temperature or pressure exceed safe margins another quartz tube containing neutron poison is shattered, instantly killing the reaction.

That would give you all the inner planets as well as Jupiter and Saturn at the very least.