NERVA on eve

[robopilot99]

While is was thinking today I had an idea. The NERVA engine works by sucking in hydrogen gas and heating it then expelling it out the back of the engine to create thrust. So I was wondering if it was possible to use a thick apnosphere like Eve's or Venus's instead of gas as fuel. Besides the obvious safety concerns could something like this actually work? Any thoughts?

[GreeningGalaxy]

If you get KSP Interstellar (which I'm feeling like a walking advertisement for lately lol), it adds a part called a thermal turbojet, which allows you to pump whatever atmosphere you have available through a hot nuclear reactor and out the back of your ship, which can and will allow you to SSTO from Eve. Using local atmospheres as working fluids for nuclear engines is totally possible. In fact...

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

...they've apparently tried it in real life.

It would have worked fine, technically, but it was abandoned due to problems with irradiating the pilot and producing radioactive exhaust. In other words, it's completely kerbal.

Edited August 27, 2014 by GreeningGalaxy

[Lazro]

Edit: Ninja no Ninja-ing!

Have you tried KSP Interstellar? It's got that functionality built-in.

On Eve, sure. Its atmosphere seems harmless enough, the only thing is its incredible density and heat. However, Venus has a corrosive atmosphere that's even hotter and under even more pressure than Eve's. Not likely there, I'm afraid...

[GreeningGalaxy]

On Eve, sure. Its atmosphere seems harmless enough, the only thing is its incredible density and heat. However, Venus has a corrosive atmosphere that's even hotter and under even more pressure than Eve's. Not likely there, I'm afraid...

Yeah, Venus is just plain (or plane) evil. It's hard to conceive of anything that could survive its atmosphere, let alone make good use of it, and even harder to imagine something like that which would be worth building.