tbeard's air/raft

[Drakon]

The radiation is caused by the contact transfer of radioactive particles 'scrubbed' off of the fuel rods by the stream of hydrogen. You just need a small handwave to avoid actual contact and you have a solid 'light bulb' type Nuclear Thermal Rocket.

I don't think you need that much of a handwave. Who said you have to spray the reaction mass onto the radioactive material? They did this with the 1950's designs because alternatives did not exist. A secondary loop (i.e. have a cooling loop around the uranium with the reaction mass injected into a heat exchanger.) was not used originally because of the extra weight.

Perhaps a 'ceramic' coating transfers heat at near 100% efficiency. Hydrogen can then pass through without becoming radioactive. The Hydrogen will not stick, but the carbon bonds with the coating and builds up. This would clog the tubes and cause the fuel rods to overheat.

Don't need to pass the hydrogen through the ceramic. Use a diamond coating. It has a melting point of 3800 degrees kelvin at 1 atm and great heat transfer characteristics. No contact with radioactive material. The only thing I would be worried about would be secondary activation. (i.e. transforming the carbon in the diamond coating into either radioactive isotopes or different elements)

As for non radioactive contamination, I am not that sure it will be an issue. The reaction mass would be travelling at a very high speed. This should scrub the "hot block" of any contaminants, and prevent contamination from forming on the surface of the block

 

[Mithras]

Aww, super-cool!!

That will help me with a thread I've got going on the Mongoose board about using air force terminology instead of naval: http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=39078

Thanks!

Just to see the look on a player's face: "I have to do what? With what?"

Check out these links on atomic aircraft (for that vectored thrust)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_aircraft

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=nuclear-powered-aircraft

Enjoy!

 

[leo knight]

Mithras, have you seen the Leif Ericson page?

Link: http://www.projectrho.com/leifstub.html

Enjoy!

 

[Mithras]

Ahh, pages and pages of SF goodness .... thanks for the link.

If only there was a pre-written game/world for the Leif Eriksoon SSC universe..!

Great stuff.