this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2023
49 points (100.0% liked)

Space

7287 readers
1 users here now

News and findings about our cosmos.

Subcommunity of Science

This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
wintrparkgrl@beehaw.org
Gaywallet@beehaw.org
alyaza@beehaw.org
remington@beehaw.org
49
The US government is taking a serious step toward space-based nuclear propulsion (arstechnica.com)
submitted 1 year ago by zhunk@beehaw.org to c/space@beehaw.org
14 comments fedilink hide all child comments
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] megopie@beehaw.org 3 points 1 year ago

These kinds of engines get about double the exhaust velocity of high efficiency conventional rockets. (A hydrolox engine like that used on the space shuttle or the centaur upper stage getting an exhaust velocity of about 4500 m/s and a nuclear thermal getting about 8000m/s)