Project Promethius

A question from Joan:

i was watchiing pbs on global warming and it occurred to me we send a LOT of pollutants into our air when we blast off a rocket or fly an airplane--why do it we not use atomic fuel to power these especially the space flights.

Good, scary question Joan!

The best answer is that it's really hard to make atomic fuel safe for use. Bad things tend to happen (see here or here), and it's not really portable.

Of course, it's been discussed. Here's an interesting article from 2000 that says it's "being investigated" . . . but a lot has changed (not really for the good) in the world since 2000.

In 2003, Our Valiant Leader George "Shrub" Bush proposed the Nuclear Space Initaitive called "Project Promethius". (Of course, he would have called it a "Nucular Space Initiative".)

Like all good ideas, that's been scaled back to virtual nothingness, with $90 million of its $100 million 2006 budget being earmarked to pay out cancelled contracts to agencies originally hired to research this.

These guys seem to think there's still hope, but they're wrong.

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (this is more fun if you pronounce it in the crazy, science-fiction/Frankenstein way of "Luh-BORE-a-tor-y") would be the place to go, but when you click on the Promethius Link on the JPL.nasa.gov website, you get THIS nice message:

This computer is funded by the United States Government and operated by the California Institute of Technology in support of ongoing U.S. Government programs and activities. If you are not authorized to access this system, disconnect now. Users of this system have no expectation of privacy. By continuing, you consent to your keystrokes and data content being monitored.

So, you know, I'd rather not.

NASA took a big hit after the Columbia disaster in 2003, and my guess is they're just trying to stay afloat. Of course, the Shuttles themselves are beyond their projected life, so it's time for something new. Bush did hint at a trip to Mars in the future, and the best way to go about that would be via your idea (nuclear fuel, in case I lost you.)

I think he's more interested in huntin' down the bad guys right now (and protecting his deep-pocket oil buddies), so let's wait a few years until we get a new cap'n of the ship and see where we're headed.

And, in the big picture, most of the CFCs (chloroflurocarbons, the bad things from emissions) are from big SUVs, not from airplanes and certainly not from rockets. It's all fairly depressing.

Weren't we supposed to have flyin' cars by the year 2000?