http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_medical/story.jsp?story=415300

Nasa gives go-ahead for nuclear mission to outer planets
By Steve Connor, Science Editor
14 June 2003


An ambitious and controversial mission to explore the other planets of the solar system using nuclear-powered spacecraft has come a step closer after Nasa gave a giant aerospace company the go-ahead to develop revolutionary new engines.

The aim is to build an interplanetary space probe powerful enough to fly vast distances and still to have enough power to collect scientific information and send it back to Earth.

Nasa, the US's National Aeronautics and Space Administration, is giving $6m (£4.3m) to the American company Lockheed Martin to investigate the concepts needed to build such a deep-space explorer powered by a miniature nuclear reactor.

Project Prometheus, named after the Greek god who gave fire to humanity, will concentrate on nuclear propulsion because it is considered the only form of power that can meet the mission's requirements.

But critics will question the safety of launching potentially dangerous nuclear material into space, especially after the technical failures that led to shuttle crash earlier this year.

Nasa said an immediate goal of Prometheus was to provide the propulsion to send a spacecraft to the planet-sized moons of Jupiter - Callisto, Ganymede and Europa - which may harbour life beneath their icy surfaces.

Solar-powered instruments would be of little help in analysing the moons and planets of the outer solar system, where the sunlight is weak and ineffectual. Nasa has decided, therefore, that only a nuclear-fission reactor would provide sufficient electricity to probe these worlds.

Existing space probes have reached as far as Jupiter and beyond but they have had to operate on the power equivalent to a few electric lightbulbs, which has severely limited what they could do, where they could go and what they could transmit back to Earth.

A nuclear-powered spacecraft could not only operate powerful radars and other remote-sensing instruments but use its engines to travel more freely instead of relying on the gravitational "sling-shot" technique that limits the trajectory of existing probes.

"Project Prometheus will develop the means to efficiently increase power for spacecraft, thereby fundamentally increasing our capability for Solar System exploration," Nasa said. "Increased power for spacecraft means not only travelling farther or faster, but is also means exploring more efficiently with enormously greater scientific return."

The first candidate for nuclear propulsion, the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter (Jimo), is unlikely to be launched before 2011 because of the time needed to build the spacecraft. However, as a fleet of space probes heads for Mars over the coming two years, the next target is likely to be Europa and its vast ice-covered ocean, confirmed by the space probe Galileo. Last year, the US National Research Council ranked a Europa orbiter as top priority for a "flagship" mission because of the possibility it might harbour life.

Nasa scientists calculate that a nuclear-fission reactor on the Jimo spacecraft would give it a hundred times more power than a comparable space probe powered by solar panels. A reactor for a spacecraft would have to be about 10,000 times smaller than typical scientific reactors used on the ground.

It would also have to incorporate safety enhancement. One feature is for the reactors to remain "cold" - not turned on - until they are well beyond Earth's orbit. Another is to ensure that once the mission is over the spacecraft is sent into a trajectory that takes it well away from Earth.

Thank God.  We gotta get off this rock.

Excellent..

let's nuke jupiter on the way out....that planet's been pissing me off for some time now.

All of that has been around (at least designed) since the 50's. None of it gets into space or the air because there are too many protesters in the world.
There are designs on the books for space based reactor plants, nuke rocket engines, and even a nuke airplane.
You don't see any because the public would pitch a fit, even before chernobly and three mile island.
Oh and the whole shuttle blowing up on take off kinda worries them about contaminating the eastern seaboard.
now if there was a launch facility in cali, I doubt people would be real worried.

YES! Now we finally get to use those nuclear rocket engines we built in the early 70's!

Art Bells buddy Stanton Friedman worked on nuke engines.

In a related thread, UTex Dallas researchers found a way to get carbon nanotubes to form fibers that are 4 times stronger than spider silk, the previous strongest fiber known to science.
[url]http://www.smalltimes.com/document_display.cfm?document_id=6204[/url]

i need to get some underwear made out of that nanotube shit

my big nuts keep busting out of my hanes

and i thought i was the only one. those bastards need to die!

the bigger they are the harder they fall

Hey, I've got no beef with Jupiter, but what is up with Saturn and those gay-ass rings, anyway? Thwell!

Don't even get me started on the probe to Uranus.

Hate to tell you this, bro, but we ain't ever getting "off this rock". I dare say that our over-populating tendencies will cause us to be extinct long before we ever find a habitable rock anywhere.

Sorry my 100th post is not more optomistic.

Why would you want to live on another rock? Its much easier to build orbiting habitats than it is to terriform a planet, or find another one thats habitable, cause there aint any within a few light years of here.

Anyplace that has astroids and a sun, you can build a orbiting habitat.

Greenpeace is going to have a shit fit. Too bad their Zodiac rubber boats can't achieve escape velocity.[:P]