Nuclear Salt Water Rockets Revisited

Jul 24, 2014

I'm working on another chapter in my book and on an article that will appear in a Space
Journal somewhere soon - so, here's an update
FYI ***
My friend Robert Zubrin published a paper
about Nuclear Salt Water Rockets back in
1991.
http://path-2.narod.ru/design/base_e/nswr.pdf
Here, you took water along with nuclear salts,
and stored them in neutron absorbing tanks,
exhausting the water through a nozzle that
allowed the salts to achieve criticality.
You could achieve very high exhaust
velocities that way!
Another approach is possible. Namely, putting
Lithium-6 Deuteride in water, along with
neutron multiplying materials, and exposing
the fusion fuels to a high neutron flux in the
rocket engine.

Similar exhaust velocities can be

achieved. Without the radioactive byproducts
of the Nuclear Salt Water Rocket approach.
There are several advantages relative to
conventional NTR designs. As the peak
neutron flux and fission reaction rates occur
outside the vehicle, these are far greater than
what is possible when built into the vessel. A
contained reactor can only allow a small
percentage of its fuel to undergo fission at any
given time, otherwise it would overheat and
meltdown or explode in a runaway fission
chain reaction. The fission reaction in an
NSWR is dynamic and because the reaction
products are exhausted into space it doesn't
have a limit on the proportion of fission fuel
that reacts.
NSWRs are a hybrid between fission reactors
and fission bombs.
Due to their ability to harness the power of
what is essentially a continuous nuclear fission
explosion, NSWRs would have both very high

thrust and very high exhaust velocity. The

rocket would be able to accelerate quickly as
well as be extremely efficient in terms of
propellant usage.
Zubrin proposed one design that generates 13
meganewtons of thrust at 66 km/s exhaust
velocity. Another design achieves 4,700 km/s
and uses 2,700 tonnes of highly enriched
uranium salts in water to propel a 300 tonne
spacecraft up to 3.6% of the speed of light.
This basically solves the problem of
spaceflight when done with Lithium-6
Deuterium Jetter Cycle process.
That cycle may be sustained by a high flux of
neutrons in the engine core. The High Flux
Isotope Reactor is a model for the type of
engine I'm talking about.
Here neutrons are focused into a central tube
through which water passes. The water
moderates the neutrons passing through it. A
beryllium reflector keeps the neutrons in the

reactor. Lithium-6 Deuteride suspended in the

water absorbs the neutrons and supports Jetter
Cycle fusion. Helium gas, neutrons and steam
are the only exhaust products.
NSWRs share many of the features of Orion
propulsion systems, except that NSWRs
generate continuous thrust and work on much
smaller scales than the smallest feasible Orion
designs.
A single stage system I described previously,
with one crewman and five passengers seated
in a capsule beneath a 30 cubic meter
propellant tank, would mass 1,585 kg and
carry 30,000 kg of water salted with Li6D,
passing through a high neutron flux region to
produce controlled thrust.
With a 4,700 km/sec exhaust speed, the
vehicle is capable of achieving 14,062.86
km/sec! Enough for a one gee boost of 16.6
days!!

With 4 days of boost combined with 4 days of

slowing down the ship can cruise at one gee a
distance of 1,171.28 million km. This is
sufficient to fly to any celestial body out to
Jupiter and back. Reducing acceleration after
planetary escape to 0.416 gees increases boost
time to 10 days per leg, 40 days per round trip,
and increases range to 6,075.15 million km.
This is sufficient to take us to all celestial
bodies in the solarsystem, including Pluto,
Haumea, Makemake, and Eris.
Semi Planet
Axis Planet Min Max Min Max 07/14
07/24/14
One gee Dist Dist Days Days Dist Days
D 57.9 Mercury 91.7 207.5 2.24 3.37 167.9
3.03
D 108.2 Venus 41.4 257.8 1.50 3.75 151.1
2.87
D 149.6 Earth
D 227.9 Mars 78.3 377.5 2.07 4.54 170.6 3.05
D 778.4 Jupiter 628.8 928.0 5.86 7.12 939.8
7.17

X0.42 Gee
D 1428.7 Saturn 1279.1 1578.3 12.98 14.42
1437 13.76
D 2871.0 Uranus 2721.4 3020.6 18.93 19.94
2952 19.72
D 4495.3 Neptune 4345.7 4644.9 23.92 24.73
4360 23.96
Building a ship such as this, and flying it back
to the moon, would be an appropriate opening
to the second round of the space age. In less
than a month such a ship could do a 'grand
tour' of all the planets out to Jupiter;
On 24 July 2014 The Grand Tour would be;
Grand Tour Dist. Days
Earth Mars 170.6 3.05
Mars Venus 330.7 4.25
Venus Merc 64.8 1.88
Merc Jup 780.3 10.14
Jup Earth 939.8 11.12

Total.... 2286.20 30.44

The hop from Mercury to Jupiter and back to
Earth would occur at 41% earth normal gravity
to conserve fuel.
A hop from Earth to moon would take 3.75
hours! Then a hop to Mars, taking 3.05
days. Then off to Venus 4.25 days. Thence to
Mercury, 1.88 days. Then the long haul to
Jupiter 10.14 days at reduced gravity. Then
back to Earth again at reduced gravity 11.12
days.
The five passengers brought along would pay
$100 million each - which would pay for the
entire development programme.
The promotion of the power source used in the
rocket, which would be developed along with
the engine, would also pay dividends for the
lucky passengers.

The reaction conditions for a power plant is

quite different than that for a rocket exhaust.
A 1000 MW steam turbine for the US power
plant Ravenswood Unit 3 was cross-compound
with 16.6 Mpa, 538C steam conditions with
44.7% thermal efficiency.These steam
conditions give the density of Li-6 Deuteride
needed for a given neutron flux to maintain
1000 MW electrical output. A closed cycle
steam system can be quite compact for this
unit, with no exhaust to the atmosphere except
helium, but even that can be mined from the
closed cycle system. Lithium-6 Deuteride is
added to the water tank to maintain power
levels.
1000 MW operating continuously and selling
power for $0.10 per kWh produces $876.6
million per year revenue. Discounted at 6.25%
per year over 30 years this revenue stream is
worth $11.75 billion. Profits of $10 billion are
possible for each unit sold. Half these profits
from the first unit divided among the
passengers, translates to $1 billion returns for

the first power plant installed - with 50%

revenue flowing to the money investors - and
50% flowing to the company - so, the trip plus
$1 billion is what each passenger gets for their
$100 million. They can even sell forward their
seat as the vehicle nears flight readiness, and
increase their revenue.
This small ship described here massing 31.6
metric tons at lift off, with a take off
acceleration of 2 gees, requires a mass flow
rate of 142 grams per second with an exhaust
velocity of 4,300 km/sec. This ship during liftoff produces an exhaust jet power of 1.31
trillion watts! The ability to reliably sustain
this level of power safely and reliably in a
compact space, is an obvious promotion of the
company's capacity to build reliable compact
and safe nuclear power units.
Five 1000 MW turbines installed each year
generate $50 billion in free cash flow, when
monetized at discount rates.
What do you with the money?

Build bigger ships!

The ships scale to any size.
You open the solar system with them, and
depopulate the Earth.

Written by

William Mook