Nuclear rocket testing may be revived for NASA

The atomic rocket has again reared its radioactive head. The nuclear-powered rocket seemingly was an idea that had its day in the 1960s, then died.

In the early 1990s, the Deseret Morning News (then named the Deseret News) discovered that in 1965 a nuclear-powered rocket had been tested at the Nevada Test Site. Bolted down, the engine roared for 10 1/2 minutes, "sending skyward a plume of nearly invisible hydrogen exhaust that had just been thrust through a superheated uranium fission reactor," wrote Lee Davidson, the paper's Washington Bureau chief.

"Three days later, the Atomic Energy Commission found radioactive iodine 131 in town water at Caliente, Nev.," about 90 miles west of Cedar City. An AEC report said the fresh fission products probably came from an open-air nuclear bomb test in China.

But it acknowledged some could have come from the atomic rocket or an underground nuclear bomb detonation at the NTS on June 16, 1965.

The nuclear rocket project was abandoned but now may be revived.

The impetus is that NASA is now preparing to send humans to Mars and probes to more distant targets. A fission-powered rocket could reach sites more quickly, planners believe.

"Ground Test Facility for Propulsion and Power Modes of Nuclear Engine Operation" was recently posted on the Web site maintained by the Savannah River National Laboratory, Aiken, S.C. Written by the laboratory's Michael R. Williams, the report was presented at an engineering convention in Tucson, Ariz., in July.

The review was sponsored by the federal government, says the cover page, but its opinions don't necessarily reflect those of the government.

"Existing DOE (Department of Energy) ground test facilities have not been used to support nuclear propulsion testing since the Rover/NERVA programs of the 1960s," says the report. NERVA stands for Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Application.

"Unlike the Rover/NERVA programs, DOE ground test facilities for space exploration enabling nuclear technologies can no longer be vented to the open atmosphere."

Savannah River might be a good place to test a prototype fuel element test reactor, referred to as the "nuclear furnace" of the rocket during the earlier program, the report indicates.

The Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory's Advanced Test Reactor could be involved in some features of the program, it adds. The location is about 45 miles west of Idaho Falls, Idaho.

The Nevada Test Site, however, was not seen as a good place for the testing.

Test facilities at the NTS's Nuclear Research and Development Area consist of three reactor test cells, an engine test stand, two large assembly-disassembly facilities and two remote control facilities that were reassigned to other purposes, it says.

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