Comment by hairytrog | Hacker News Reader

Comment by hairytrog | Hacker News Reader

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Is it time to recalibrate rocket technologies with added metric of pollution. Does this mean that Project Prometheus (plopping out nukes sequentially and riding the nuke push https://youtu.be/njM7xlQIjnQ?t=544) might be back on the table?

To reach the moon requires - By chemical rocket: 1000 tons of chemical fuel for each 1 ton of payload with 1000:1 ratio roughly linear with increasing payload. Max capability today is on order of 100 tons per launch. - By nuclear detonations: fuel:payload closer to 3:1 with prototype design of 400 ton payload for single rocket, and later designs aiming for 100,000 ton payload/rocket.

Is 30x less waste by mass better even if that waste is in part radioactive? Water waste still seems pretty good to me.

https://newatlas.com/orion-project-atom-bomb-spaceship/49454...

Really, who gives a damn? Unless we are launching orbital flights at the rate we launch commercial airliners, emissions from rockets are a pisshole in the snow.

If we do ramp up to that kind of tempo, economics will spur on efficiency advances. Nipping progress in the bud now because it might be a problem some undefined period of time down the line is cowardly and depressing.

Gotta agree.

That, apart from the political and practical issues surrounding nuclear power, ignores the significant amount of pollution created during nuclear fuel enrichment.

Is 1000:1 right? I thought the Saturn V was about 100:1.

That "water waste" requires molecular hydrogen, and producing that requires energy. The real waste is coming out of some power plant.

The altitude where the waste is exhausted matters too. For instance, the GHG forcing from your everyday airliner is about 3x compared to the same amount of CO2 and H20 exhausted at sea level. This difference is almost entirely due to the H20, IIRC there's no altitude dependence in CO2 emissions.

Orion was a complete failure of a project, so hardly a good idea to reference it.

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