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I've been toying with vertical SSTO rocketships over the last few days. In particular, I had quite high hopes for @Nertea's pebble bed lOx-augmented modded NTRs, however, they still turned out to be more mass than wallop at take-off. So I have this non-KSP question: why do vacuum-oriented chemical and nuclear rockets lose this much thrust ASL, and why then are nuclear lightbulbs frequently touted as the SSTO engine of choice in hard sci-fi?

Alright here's my second post. Firstly, I would like to thank everybody who gave me such good ideas in the previous discussion. I'm working on getting all the mods that were suggested and also opening up a thread where I'll tell about my journey. Sadly, progress has been halted and this post should clear up why. Anyway, I've started creating my mudpack with all the good mods and then a few I found. I started with Kerbal Atomics, mainly because it was small and useful, but also because I like the mods and features. So I moved the Game Data folder into the correct position, and started up KSP. When I got there, none of the actual mod items were there, but it was still giving me options to use things such as Liquid Hydrogen and other subtypes. So this raises my question: what am I doing wrong? I've got all the mod setup correctly and got all the essential plugins, but it just won't give me the items. Please help.

Nuclear Aircraft Engines To download, go to the Thermonuclear Turbines 1.1 release page. Development Album OLD Development Album A new hot way to get into orbit! This is a small mod in development that adds nuclear turbine aircraft engines based off of this concept, Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion, Project Pluto (Thanks to Nothalogh for sharing this link) and the similar Soviet program Tupolev Tu-95LAL, also with a little influence from the Choujikuu Yousai Macross anime series and sequels to give one of the engines space capability. I've been passing this idea around for a bit, and with the new changes to the LV-N Atomic Rocket, I can now make it. The concept behind the engine is that thermal energy is transferred through a heat exchanger into the "can" (combustion section of a turbine) instead of using combustion to rapidly heat up gasses to turn the turbine and provide thrust. Features: Six Engines: MASAMUNE, KUNAI, Short-M, NODACHI, MURASAMA, KATANA Custom Sounds Custom FX Attention: Much like the R.A.P.I.E.R. engine, the nuclear engines' CoM is adjusted forward to both help balance the craft and to simulate parts being gutted out to make room for the compressor, diffuser, and reactor "can." Current Issues A small bug with using conventional engines along with the nuclear engines will make them effectively nuclear. FIXED! A small bug with the "turbine spin" when switching modes of the MASAMUNE where the turbine spins down in nuclear rocket mode. FIXED! (New models and design change this.) Bug where the alternator does not supply electricity in nuclear rocket mode. This is caused by the muti-mode engine module. Just deploy solar panels in space. FIXED! (Although still good to have solar panels.) Current Status: M.A.S.A.M.U.N.E.: COMPLETE N.O.D.A.C.H.I.: COMPLETE K.U.N.A.I.: COMPLETE SHORT-M: COMPLETE M.U.R.A.M.A.S.A.: COMPLETE K.A.T.A.N.A.: MK2 cross-section, Being finished Currently Planned: Direct Air Cycle Engines (Phase I) MX-01 K. U. N. A. I. (Kerbin Utility Nuclear Aircraft Inductor) for those transport planes that never need to land. [does not go to space] MX-01X M. A. S. A. M. U. N. E. (Multiple Accelerator, Specialized Aicraft, Modified Utility Nuclear Engine) [goes to space] MXF-01 SHORT-M (Short M.A.S.A.M.U.N.E.) [lighter, less powerful, designed for small minimalist SSTOs] MX-02 N. O. D. A. C. H. I. (Nuclear Over Drive Aerospace Craft Heat Inductor) For your forever 2.5m flying needs [goes to space] MPX-01 M. U. R. A. M. A. S. A. (Multi Use Rotating Air Mechinism And Specialized Aircraft) Nuclear Propeller [you'll wish it went to space] MX-02 K.A.T.A.N.A. (Kerbin Aerospace Transport And Nuclear Acceleration) MK2 Style hybrid engine. [Also goes to space] Indirect Air Cycle Engines: (Phase II) planned but tentative Mk-II Reactor Mk-III Reactor 1.25m Reactor 2.5m Reactor ID-01 Turbine IDX-01X Hybrid Turbine IDP-02-ID Nuclear Propeller CHANGE LOG 1.0.0: Almost complete. No release yet. 0.1.42a: Accidentally broke the Masamune and Kunai engines, fixed now. 0.1.42: - Updated all plugins for 1.04 (licenses included) - Corrected animation for Short-M engine - Minor fixes 0.1.41: A little tuning to the configs and fixes the attachment node for Short-M Engine 0.1.4: Added 'Short M' engine (early) 0.1.3a: Hot Fix!!! 0.1.3: Fixed resource for air breathing, used Community Resource Pack's IntakeAtm intead of IntakeAir (thanks to suggestions by Svm420 and FreeThinker). Added MM patch for all intakes. A few minor config tweaks. 0.1.2: Changed emissive constant. 0.1.1: Description Fix in M.A.S.A.M.U.N.E Engine 0.1.0: Initial Alpha Pre-release Additional Credit: BahamtoD: BDAnimationModules.dll & Exhaust Effects B.Dynamics - Retracting/vectoring engines etc. (Pre 1.0.0) nli2work: for his awesome propeller meshes. Nazari1382: Hot Rockets (And the tutorial to make my own.) Snjo: for FireSpitter (*.dll Packaged with Thermal Nuclear) sarbian: for Module Manager (*.dll Packaged with Thermal Nuclear) RoverDude: for Community Resource Pack (Packaged with Thermal Nuclear) This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Nerva HT Engine v1.0 Late-game 2.5m Nuclear Engine. I was originally asked to model an engine for this mod, but unfortunately the mod was halted and I never got to finish it. I went back to my original draft and started over to release the engine model on my own and use it to learn how to mod KSP from Unity. Download: Spacedock Dropbox Real Plume config by @VenomousRequiem. Module Manager required for RealPlume configs. Please check out my Development Thread for my new ProbesPlus mod! License: CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 Please let me know if you release anything based on my work. I'd love to check it out!

So, we know that the technology for the NERVA has existed for a long time now, and fully functional test engines were built. Now we all know how much easier Interplanetary travel is with these things, so how come they have never actually been applied to a real space mission? Is it because of radiation concerns?

If you're going to build an actual spaceship -- a craft you can take to another planet as easily as a pirate could sail across the Mediterranean -- there are a few things to keep in mind. Gravity. You're going to need artificial gravity if you want to be able to manage long trips, so you'll need to either have a spinning hab, or you'll need to spin the whole ship. Power. You need high-thrust engines to get on and off of planets, high-impulse engines to make your transfer burns propellant-efficient, and energy to run your ship in transit. Trimodal nuclear thermal engines are your only real choice (a trimodal NTR has three modes: high-impulse, where low-density propellant is heated and ejected by the nuclear core, high-thrust, where LOX is injected into the propellant stream to increase thrust at the expense of impulse, and thermal-electric, where the circulation of coolant generates electricity). Shielding. Your hab needs to be shielded from both solar radiation and the nuclear radiation of your engine(s). Volume. You need a large internal volume to carry an enormous amount of fuel if you're going to be able to make a transfer, land, take off again, and head back. Granted, you'd use in-orbit refueling wherever possible, but you need the flexibility to make a round-trip to unvisited worlds. Surface area. Although you need a large volume, you also need a form factor with a blunt-body surface area, allowing re-entry heating to be as minimal as possible. Further, large surface area will help with radiating heat away in space. Finally, a lifting-body shape will make launch and re-entry a bit nicer. What, then, is the optimal shape and configuration? Here you go. Yep, it's a flying saucer. The hab is located in the center column and is a single floor, preventing any unpleasant gravity gradients. Because the center is open, it allows windows to be embedded in the ceiling, which will feel more natural. The hab is far more "open" overall than most designs, while still being well-protected from radiation and micrometeoroid strikes due to its location in the center of the ship. It will feel very natural to have the sky "up" and the ground "down". The hab is shielded by wrapping the ship's tankage completely around it. The triangular cross-section maximizes internal volume while also having the optimal shielding profile. Obviously, the entire ship rotates. The ship is powered by six small nuclear reactors, feeding three linear exhaust nozzles: Each of the three exhaust nozzles is capable of running on a single reactor, so you still have maneuverability even if you need to scram one or two of your reactors. The coolant cyclers and generators are also in this area. Only minimal shielding is necessary, due to the placement of the large internal tanks. For on-orbit burns, the three nozzles all fire together, providing moderate thrust even at the highest operating impulse: During any such burn, there will be a slight misalignment of the apparent gravitational field, but it will likely be no more disorienting than standing on a train while it starts to move. It is also likely that in most cases, the ship will only "spin up" after its transfer injection burns, relieving this issue entirely. Takeoff and landing use the same orientation as on-orbit burns, but with the injection of liquid hydrogen or another oxidizer to dramatically increase thrust at the expense of specific impulse: During takeoff, however, maintaining this thrust orientation would make drag losses altogether unmanageable. For this reason, the nozzles are able to change orientation in order to thrust backward during in-atmosphere climbs (for reaching orbit from Terra, Mars, etc.): Because the "flying saucer" shape is one of the only shapes which is capable of achieving reasonable lift in subsonic, supersonic, and hypersonic flight, this allows for the higher-specific-impulse burn to be used (when applicable) to achieve orbital velocities. Obviously, on worlds without atmospheres, liftoff would be purely vertical without any intermediate horizontally-oriented burn stage. Re-entry uses the large blunt surface area underneath to dissipate heat passively (although active cooling could be used, in principle): Passengers are seated in the upper ring during takeoff and landing, both for gravitational orientation and for safety reasons. Launch abort escape would be achieved either through individual ejection seats or through the ejection of the entire upper ring using built-in thrusters. It is possible that the upper ring could also be configured to serve as an ejectable lifeboat in the case of an on-orbit accident. \ Attitude control could be achieved either by vectoring the thrusters, or by venting coolant. Placing the heavy engines at the outside isn't ideal, but given that this is going to be designed with enough structural integrity for powered landing, it shouldn't prove too problematic. The hab would have nearly 8500 square feet of floor space under artificial gravity, with more than 30 times the pressurized volume of the Space Shuttle crew cabin. I'm estimating a nominal dry weight of 1200 tonnes. The body encloses enough space for 9800 cubic meters of tankage; using a dense propellant like hydrazine, this corresponds to 9,900 metric tonnes of fuel. With pebble-bed reactors giving a specific impulse of around 520 seconds, you get a lovely 11 km/s of dV. Enough to reach orbit as SSTO (if you use LOX-injection augmentation). Also enough to fly to the moon, land, take off, and come back. Now to build the damn thing...

Hi! I have been much idle time, but I'm back and I'm back with a new idea: more nuclear propulsion. Justification of more nuclear propulsion: In Kerbal no evidence of the existence of a cold war, nuclear testing and non nuclear proliferation treaty; and also the only life there are those green people living in the rocket base, so no problem with nuclear contamination. (forever alone) The atomic propulsion that I suggest: - Nuclear thermic engine (update): Now make use of only hydrogen (more down) instead fuel and oxidizer. - Radioisotope engine: A little engine similar to ionic engine, little more heavy, that make use of hydrogen (instead xenon) and not requires electricity. - Atomic bulb: A big powerful engine that make use of hydrogen and little of uranium (more down), and produces electricity. - Nuclear liquid uranium engine: A medium powerful engine that make use of hydrogen and uranium. - Nuclear gas uranium engine: A big very powerful engine that make use of hydrogen and lots of uranium. - Uranium bubble: A medium very powerful engine that make use of only uranium (need a new animation to represent ioniced uranium bubble), and lots of electricity. - Nuclear pulse engine: A very big and very powerful engine that make use of 0,8 to 25 kilotons range nuclear detonations to propelling (need a new animation to represent engine move and nuclear explosions), make use of nuclear nukes (there is of different types, mass and power). - Advanced nuclear pulse engine: A extremely big and powerful engine that make use of 25 kilotons to megaton range nuclear detonations. - Polywell nuclear thermic engine: A little-medium engine that make use of a controlled fusion reactor to heat up hydrogen (make use of only hydrogen), and produces much electricity. - Antimatter injection thermic engine: A little-medium engine that make use of very low amounts of antimatter to heat up hydrogen (make use of hydrogen and antimatter), and produces much electricity. Fuels and materials to propulsion: - Liquid hydrogen: in containers of similar size to "fuel-oxidant" containers (any size). - Uranium: in little and shorts containers. - Antimatter: in little and shorts heavy containers, with reinforced texture, these containers consumes a lots of electricity to contain the antimatter, if there is no electricity, it will explode. - Nukes (very expensive, care): of various types, in very width and shorts containers: - 0,8 kt (60 units) - 2 kt (30 units) - 5 kt (20 units) - 10kt (10 units) - 25 kt (5 units) - 50 kt (3 units) - 100 kt (1 unit) of various types, in very width and large containers: - 25 kt (30 units) - 50 kt (20 units) - 100 kt (10 units) - 250 kt (5 units) - 500 kt (3 units) - Megaton (1 unit) Utilities: - Big radioisotope battery. - Nuclear isomer battery: like classic radioisotope battery, but with more intensity, less duration and rechargeable. - Nuclear power reactor (produces a lots of energy, consumes uranium). - Polywell power reactor (produces more energy than fission nuclear, consumes hydrogen and requires big quantity of energy to start). Technology tree: After nuclear node (thermal nuclear engine): - Add: little and medium hydrogen containers/tanks After nuclear node (thermal nuclear engine): - Advanced nuclear node: nuclear power reactor, big radioisotope battery, radioisotope engine, little uranium container/tank, big hydrogen containers/tanks. After advanced nuclear node: - More advanced nuclear node: atomic bulb, gas nuclear thermal engine, liquid nuclear thermal engine, medium uranium container/tank. - Basic nuclear fusion: polywell power reactor, isomer battery. After more advanced nuclear node: - Kiloton: nuclear pulse engine, little nukes containers, uranium bubble. After basic nuclear fusion node: - Advanced nuclear fusion: polywell engine. - Antimatter: antimatter containers, antimatter injection engine. After kiloton node: - Megaton: advanced nuclear pulse engine, big nukes containers.

I want to know more about nuclear fission and different kinds of fuels, but all the literature I can find is denser than the fuels themselves. All I really want to know is; what machinery do you need to produce controlled nuclear fission and what wastes are produced by uranium, plutonium, and thorium fission?