More Stories
	Nuclear Power: The Future of Spaceflight?
	Will Nuclear Power Put Humans On Mars?
	Ringworld Movie Around the Corner
	Making Somebody Pay

We were offered a list of current and near-future possibilities. Scary stuff, mostly military, mostly nasty or worrisome. The only answers I had for those were, "See to it that they’re ours." But I looked (naturally) for anything they’d left out.

1.

For the 46 years of the Cold War we were obsessed with the threat of global thermonuclear war . . . of the Bomb.

It isn’t as if other possibilities have been ignored. We got atomic plants, and ridiculously accurate clocks. There were Nerva and the atomic airplane, and though nothing ever flew, these projects taught us things. But what did we miss?

Once upon a time there was the X-plane program.

Technique: build something to test one idea. Build quick and dirty. The basic purpose: develop surprising capabilities for aircraft. We (actually Macnamara) terminated that. Politicians can’t plan disarmament if they don’t know what tomorrow’s weapons will be.

The Cold War is over. What should we be learning? What is someone else learning? There must be possibilities we’ve missed or ignored in the thermonuclear domain.

These probably will not be weapons. We wouldn’t have missed many possible weapons.

Look for a thermonuclear surprise.

~

2.

Expect it to emerge from places where most people don’t get old.

These will tend to be Third World nations, of course, but rich ones. Don’t laugh; the Soviet Union was an oversized Third World nation with a space program, if you look at it that way. We could evolve others.

Long-lived people are too careful. In this nation’s courtrooms, juries too often behave as if everyone had a right to live forever; as if every accident, every personal or public disaster, were somebody’s fault. Hell, we’re lucky somebody is still building ladders. The United States will no longer do dangerous research, and nukes are likely to provoke hysteria.

I offered the IDA a first-stage rocket lifter as a possible nuclear surprise.

France might not shy from such research. They’ve gone big with atomic plants; they’ve had practice with radioactives; Madame Curie was theirs. They’re already in the launching business.

Any Soviet country might have access to KGB records. The KGB is likely to have acquired data from the Nerva thermonuclear rocket motor project, and the atomic airplane too. Though nothing ever flew, the records would be a head start. And they had the only working space station for many years.

~

3.

Half my friends in the space industry think we can get to orbit in one stage.

Half of those are sure of it, but I think any of them would change their minds in the face of a good argument or working multi-stage hardware. Mitchell Clapp has always been persuasive with his succession of spaceplane designs that refuel at high altitude. Kissler Aerospace got a certain distance with two-stage designs. Some friends still say, "God loves the two-stage rocket," when they speak of low Earth orbit.

There was a time when it was known that the emphasis on a recoverable rocket should go with the first stage. The first-stage lifter faces the least stress from winds and reentry heat. It doesn’t have to make orbit, or ride the nose of another rocket and survive the vibrations. It only has to go up and down. Build it versatile so it can launch a variety of second stages; the first of these would be throwaways.

A first stage also needs greater thrust. Takeoff is the most dangerous time, and a second stage mounted on top has to be under enough force to stay put against vibration. Tradition says: launch at four gravities.

No problem. Just build a big enough motor.

Then we built the shuttle instead; but the logic still holds.

~

4.

Build a first-stage lifter, and build it thermonuclear.

Build it like the Soviets built the Soyuz. They wheel it out horizontally, with the top stage (of four) unsupported. They lift it to vertical on the field and launch in up to 60 mile-per-hour winds. It’s that brutally strong. It would make a decent bridge.

Given the potential exhaust velocity of a nuke motor, you don’t mind it being heavy. Build it strong. I picture one big tank full of liquid hydrogen, one big motor, and one flat side with fittings for anything you might want to launch.

With the second stage gone, there would be only the empty tank and the motor. It’d come back to Earth like a silvered Mylar birthday balloon weighted at one end: butt down all the way. Land with the rocket working at low thrust, like Heinlein and Flash Gordon always intended. Heinlein would have filled the tank with water.

~

5.

Where will it come from?

France has the ambition, the launch sites, and the familiarity with radioactive materials. Their commercial launch concerns are partly supported by government funding.

Some of the Soviet offshoots might have or might acquire the knowledge and the plutonium.

China might buy both from any of them. China has wealth as well as poverty.

The OPEC countries might buy the skills; they’ve got the Sahara as a launch pad; probably they already have the plutonium; the ancient Muslim love of knowledge might resurge even in Iraq or Iran. Oil pays for it all.