why does NASA still use fossil fuels why not nuclear energy to launch space craft?

Answer 1

Liquid hydrogen is not the only liquid rocket propellant in use today, and hydrogen does not occur free in nature. Most is produced from hydrocarbons, and any produced from electrolysis is likely to have fossil-fueled electricity in that process (as does the cryogenic operation of keeping liquid hydrogen in liquid form).

Life thusfar isn't so elegantly simple.

Answer 2

A "fossil fuel" is one created from oil, or compressed form of hydrocrabon such as coal.

The reason Nuclear powered spacecraft have not been developed is both political and need based. In the 70's NERVA was a nuclear thermal rocket project that was pretty successful, but they didnt see the need for such a rocket. Nuclear systems are not a problem once they leave our atmoshpere. Several new satellites and probes being launched will be powered by nuclear reactors... several are already in space.

Also, a liquid oxygen/liquid hydrogen mix is used to power the space shuttle SSME's, but the boosters are solid rockets. The fuel in the SRB's is a mixture of aluminum power, curing agent, a perchlorate, and a couple of other chemicals... so no fossil fuel is even close to being a part of any rocket system.

Many other fuel mixes are used, boith solid and liquid, by all coutries including russia, the ESA, and NASA.

Nuclear powered craft in use for launch carry with them inherent dangers and radioactive exhaust. So at this point they cannot be launched inside our atmosphere. However, they can and will be used in future spacecraft and launched from orbit around Earth, where the radiation cannot harm our atmosphere.

Answer 3

Because of nuclear residue being dumped in the atmosphere. The Canadians had the ability to launch crafts into orbit from the Avro Arrow, back in the 50s, but the U.S. convinced them to abandon the project. Everything was destroyed, though there are ongoing searches for the test models that were fired out over the Great Lakes.

What will eventually be needed is a Space Elevator, which will allow transport of material up a guide cable, but would have to be established in South America at the equator. This is due to the spin of the planet, and the height of the mountain ranges down there.

Eventually, we may develop a strong enough, positive gravimetric field, which would act like placing the positive ends of two magnets together. The planet does produce a Positive Ion field, and I wonder what another strong, positive Ion field would do in approximation.

Answer 4

Amazingly enough, shortly after WWII there was a project to study the use of nuclear bombs (fission bombs, not fusion bombs) to launch spacecraft directly from the surface of the Earth. The idea was to build a heavy spacecraft consisting of an upside down armor plated bowl. The bowl would have a small door in the bottom (which was the top, since the bowl was upside down) through which you would drop a nuke, and quickly set it off before it fell to the ground. The explosion would lift the whole structure off the ground. A series of such explosions would accelerate the ship up into the sky and into orbit. The idea was tried out in miniature with dynamite and it worked just fine. The project was called Project Orion and it was not a NASA project it was an Army project I think.

This is different from NERVA, which was a rocket engine that was only intended for use in interplanetary space, not for launching spaceships from the surface of the Earth.

Orion was never developed into an operational spacecraft for obvious reasons: The radioactive exhaust from the bombs would have made a real mess.

Answer 5

NASA does power some of its craft by nuclear power. The Cassini probe comes to mind. It was powered by plutonium. That's why there were so many idiot protesters at KSC for its launch. Even if it had exploded during launch, the odds of any radioactive debris going anywhere unconfined were less likely than your being able to quantumly fall through the chair you're sitting on. Some of the tests NASA does on its containers is fun to watch. Those guys must have even more fun than vehicle crash testers.
However, there is currently no technology which uses nuclear power for the launch phase of a mission. It is all still chemical combustion. If you ever invent one, which would make possible things like flying cars and launches like the Millennium Falcon, you will become very very rich.

Answer 6

NASA did look into using nuclear fuels to power spacecraft back in the late 1960s to early 1970s. The project was called NERVA, and the initial goal was to produce an upper stage for the Saturn V rocket. Multiple reasons led to its cancellation, among them:

- Even a minor failure would result in dispersement of radioactive material and fallout in the surrounding environment.
- Along the same lines, for manned missions and most unmanned missions, extensive shielding would be required to prevent radiation from affecting the payload, negating some of its advantage in efficiency over chemical rockets.
- The Saturn V program was cancelled during the Nixon administration, so there wasn't a rocket to carry it.
- The public opinion was negative towards nuclear power at the time.

There are some programs which are studying nuclear propulsion, such as NASA's Project Prometheus, but currently face an uncertain future due to funding cuts.

Answer 7

Personally I think anyone who asks this question lacks sufficient understanding of the dangers of nuclear energy.

And I'm not a hippy. I actually would support nuclear energy if I had any faith in bureaucracies. But bureaucracies are intractably careless, the people who work in them are insulated by the paperwork from reality, and so nuke plants remain unsafe. Not because of the technology, but because people holding boring jobs so often become lazy and indifferent.

I hope that changes, because nuclear energy is a very promising thing. The day the bureaucrats stop blocking a permanent waste repository to solve that decades old problem is when I will support the technology.

And to those who says libs or hippies are blocking the repository, I say look up the facts. It's the Republican legislature of Nevada that has continued to hold it up.

Answer 8

Nasa uses hydrogen in rocket fuel, the only byproduct is rain. Nuclear fuel would be UNBELEIVABLY dangerous. Imagine what would happen if another space shuttle blew up like challenger did. Fallout everywhere, and an enormous explosion which would probably kill many hundreds of people.

Answer 9

Nuclear sounds good but it leaves radiation and as of yet u don't want that spewed out in the air do u. Liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen are not fossil fuels

Answer 10

They use a mixture liquid oxygen and liquid nitrogen, how are those fossil fuels? You think they fill those tanks up on unleaded gasoline? Haha.