A discussion about the NERVA and Terrier.

[Wizard Kerbal]

     When I was building my shuttle, I noticed something. The NERVA and the Terrier engine have the same thrust(60kn in vac). I immediately thought, “What other lies have I been told by the council?”

     But they aren’t wrong. The NERVA weighs three tons, compared to the terrier’s 0.5.

     And their fuel tanks are the same mass, so that doesn’t effect anything.

     And the main reason people use the Terrier over the Nerva/Nerva over the terrier - efficiency and thrust.

     I and Matt Lowne’s Gilly tutorial thought the Terrier had higher TWR. Not necessarily wrong, but just a bit. And considering you need less fuel tanks for a NERVA, it might have been beneficial to use it in that case.

     But, because of it’s effiency, it’s still best for interplanetary tugs that need high deltaV,  or short range interplanetary tugs with really heavy payloads, like eve ships.

Edited April 26, 2021 by Wizard Kerbal
Made it more coherent.

[jimmymcgoochie]

I’ll assume you meant Terrier the whole way through rather than Poodle, which is a completely different part.

The Terrier is lighter, cheaper, available earlier in the tech tree, smaller (so more practical on landers) and conventional LF/Ox so has many more fuel tank options than the NERV which requires aircraft parts to function effectively. The only reason to use the NERV is for its outright efficiency, when money is no object and you need the maximum possible delta-V.

[Guest]

16 hours ago, Wizard Kerbal said:

     But they aren’t necessarily wrong. The NERVA weighs three tons, compared to the poodle’s 0.5.

That is a huge difference especially for a smaller craft.

I’ve never really found a use for the Nerv in my designs (too long/too heavy). I use Nertea’s nuclear engines mod now which adds a whole range of different size/performance nuclear engines and the Nerv gets permapruned unfortunately.