Advanced propulsion systems and solar system spaceships
- Paper ID
1978-IAF-233
- author
- company
Foundation Inc.
- country
U.S.A.
- year
1978
- abstract
A study project underway at this organization has produced a preliminary conceptual design for an advanced, nuclear-powered solar system spaceship with characteristic mission velocities ranging from 120,000 feet per second (36.6 km/sec) to greater than 500,000 ft/sec (152.4 km/sec). The performance of this reusable single-stage spaceship is dependent upon a hybrid pulsed fission/fusion rocket engine configured to allow both high thrust and high specific impulse operation at power levels from a few thousand to more than one hundred thousand megawatts thermal power. The engine is based upon the use of small pellets of fission/fusion fuel mixture which release energy following ablation-driven compression to ultrahigh densities by a relativistic electron beam trigger device.