Society is quite distracted these days unfortunately and it could use some
serious focus. Quite frankly, just about anything that would benefit humanity
would be a good thing. From an engineering and technology standpoint, the race
to the moon was a good example of focus. The economic and political timing was
very good at the time and I'm not sure something of that scale would fly today,
despite the potential technological windfall and benefits. It's surprising that
we achieved it with all the distractions in play at the time for that matter.
There remains a significant percentage of society that still believe it was a
waste of treasure and resources back then. Going to space remains incredibly
expensive and not considered to be a priority by many.
The Manhattan project was another good example of getting ducks in a row to
accomplish a technological goal. There's certainly a long argument to be had
whether or not it was a benefit to humanity however. Almost anything nuclear
still remains a paradox unfortunately.
If we had a 50 year heads-up on the impending collision with a 50 mile diameter
asteroid, I wonder how we would deal with it? Try to run or stop it? Either
path (or both) would likely generate a lot of interesting focus.:-) I
personally think that a significant advancement in technology in areas beyond
the status quo is a necessity. Propulsion and systems to effectively put them
to good use is one of them IMO. I'm fascinated with many of the programs of the
50's, in particular the attitude in problem solving, scope and out of the box
thinking that took place. Orion is a great example.
Anthony J. Cesaroni
President/CEO
Cesaroni Technology/Cesaroni Aerospace
http://www.cesaronitech.com/
(941) 360-3100 x101 Sarasota
(905) 887-2370 x222 Toronto
-----Original Message-----
From: arocket-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <arocket-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of
Henry Spencer
Sent: Friday, August 23, 2019 12:15 AM
To: Arocket List <arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [AR] Re: Zubrin,
On Thu, 22 Aug 2019, anthony@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
Have any experiments been conducted using Zubrin’s nuclear salt-water
rocket (NSWR) concept to verify the design or has it fallen into the
”anything that’s nuclear” black hole?
The cost to even get to the experimental stage wouldn’t be trivial
seeing this isn’t the 50s.
I subscribe to the model that if we are going to accomplish anything
*really* significant in space flight in the next generation, we have
to get the known chemical reaction approach monkey off our back.
