this post was submitted on 27 Jul 2023
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The US government is taking a serious step toward space-based nuclear propulsion (arstechnica.com)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Four years from now, if all goes well, a nuclear-powered rocket engine will launch into space for the first time. The rocket itself will be conventional, but the payload boosted into orbit will be a different matter.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

The biggest hazard is launching the payload, if it fails it falls out over a large area causing contamination of the nuclear fuel. The high orbit of the test vehicle lowers the risks for the other outcomes you identified, and they are planned to remain in these so called "disposal orbits" for many hundreds of years. Things can get very very far apart in space. The Russian recon satellites were operated in low earth orbit and their failures were well documented and even attempted to mitigate by the soviets, though they did fail with very bad consequences at least three times.