How Nuclear rockets will get us to Mars and beyond 

Curious Droid is brain candy for engineers and historians. I’m “curious” what field Paul Shillito’s formal training (if any) is in. Well done documentaries Paul! These are better than many major broadcaster’s productions.

Not long ago I've subscribed to this channel when it had about 20,000 subs, and I can say with the utmost certainty - this channel is a case study on how to make an excellent channel with amazing content

“ you can either go faster or carry more payload” Kerbal: Slower than a turtle and Medium payload, take it or leave it

Wall-E used a fire extinguisher to great effect. I think we should focus on fire extinguisher propulsion technology.

If Paul Shillito's hard work, quality animation, deep research, and amazing interviews aren't enough to make you give to his patreon page....his over the top eye blasting shirt deserves the donation at least.

the man with the shirt of a thousand guitar picks actually helped me understand specific impulse. thanks sir

An interesting concept would be to make the reactor part of the payload. It'd be awfully useful, when setting up a colony, to have a few hundred MW of energy that doesn't involve solar panels for miles. Use electrical propulsion with high Isp and eat the increased transit time for the sake of having lots of energy colony-side.

I want to keep it short and sweet like your videos, absolutely astonishing! By that I mean how much concise clear information you convey in a short amount of time. I give your efficiency around 9 9 9, LOL keep it up as I find myself getting addicted to your videos!

Sounds interesting. Being able to get to mars in 45 days would open up a whole world of possibilities

NERVA from 1964 is superior to anything we use today. NERVA redesigned with modern materials will be even more so.

I worked on the Rover engine early in my engineering career, and was impressed by the test results being achieved at Los Alamos. This engine was not firmly linked to any certain space mission, but simply offered efficiency advantages. As such, Congress eventually lost its enthusiasm for the concept, and resulting funding cuts shelved our work in the late sixties.

This video is a masterpice. The collected material, the accuracy of informations, the concise language and the smooth melody’s in the background! It is a masterpiece!

What I really like about these videos is that you can really feel that a lot of effort was put into research on the specific topics. Even if you were already into the subject before you can still learn something new...which is very often not the case with TV documentaries. Therefore: thanks! Keep up the good work!

A nuclear reactor paired with a VASIMR engine would be the best combination. Xenon and argon, gases it can use for fuel, are noble gases, therefore easier to store compared to hydrogen, which requires complex systems to store for long periods of time. Also, even though the thrust is lower, it doesn't matter in space. Specific impulse is the key here, and even though the burns would be longer it would overall result in more payload capacity and faster transfers.

Your videos are awesome!!! You have a great talent in explaining complicated or long things in an interesting way!

To Mars in 45 days, that would be a proper commute! Although the time windows for that are probably short, it would be super handy for crew and cargo transports. Perhaps an array of space stations across the Mars / Earth orbits could be used to shorten routes when Mars/Earth aren't in ideal position to one another. For this to happen, it probably would have to be proven first that interplanetary cargo transports can yield astronomical profits. Mars' soil probably contains all kinds of materials that are rare on Earth. We probably need a functioning space industry first before we can think about lucrative space tourism and settlements. How to kickstart this is one of the greatest challenges.

The fuel in a nuclear rocket is either plutonium, uranium, or thorium. The LH2 is the reaction mass. That's an important distinction.

I always enjoy watching your videos great narration very professional quality stuff you can tell you put a lot of effort into this and it shows one of my favourite channels. All the best from North Wales

XLNT! Fantastic research and dedicated sharing of Knowledge ! Thank you my man from across the pond!

Love your videos. Very informative and easy to follow. I have my grandsons watching them now.

Shirts keep getting better and better

This channel is great, thank you for the work you do to give us these videos!

The efforts he puts in speaking for the microphone to be able to capture the words correctly enough to be recognizable is beyond inspirational.

This music is the music they play during reflection scenes in 80's movies. The scenes where something bad or intense just happened like someone they cared about died and the character is reflecting on it all depressed. Driving in their car to a random destination while the camera that has been pointed at their face goes outside and pans away into the distance.

Thanks lord Varys, I always follow your channel

Very informative! I always associated nuclear space propulsion with an Orion drive. Thanks for detailing some of the other (less destructive) options :)

Always impressed by the brilliant videos from this channel

Amazing content mate, keep it going.

Tip #1 for making an educational video: Get a guy with a British accent. ;-)

This channel is brilliant! I hope you reach 1 million subscribers soon.

Absolutely, nuclear power is virtually untapped. I’m all for it.

Thank you for presenting such interesting scientific material. This kind of info is not that easy to find and you have put it down in one or two of your programs You are a positive addition to people who are want to learn more about science but who are simply interested amateurs. Keep up the good work, bald guy. We need and appreciate people like you.

Go, nuclear! Should never have stopped! We'd be across the Solar System by now.

@04:59 Watch closely the explosion. It took less than 3 seconds to deploy the fire extinguishers. THAT’s impressive!

Thank you so much #Curious Droid. Your videos are awesome.

Thanks for your videos. They are quite informative

Thanks for clarifying clarifying the current trajectory of the roadster, it seemed to me that they had missed the window for the route to intercept Mars but I haven't seen it announced anywhere.

Had a now-deceased colleague at Westinghouse who worked on NERVA as a young engineer. One problem he said was that in the event of a rocket explosion in the atmosphere, the radioactive fuel would not disperse but land in concentrated highly radioactive chunks. According to him, if it had burned up in the atmosphere, the resulting fine particles would have been at safe concentration. But because the speed of entry would create an air film layer insulating the fuel, and despite the fuel creating its own heat, the aerodynamic radioactive elements would not break apart into a fine powder they had hoped for.

Mr. Shillito's delivery of information and narration was A+ all the way. This is great lay person, of the intellectually curious sort, intellectual stimulation. The nuclear propulsion, in-space- configured, does seem the most sensible. I would prefer a more tethered set up where the engine is more remote, say, a mile forward, or a quarter mile to the rear. Even a butterfly set up would be better than a Texas highway truck and boat trailer set up. Put the engine between two Mars going craft.

Absolutely one of the best instructors on the internet. Mr. Droid, where do you get all of your knowledge)

You just got subscribed great idea .

Paul, I enjoy all your topics of discussion and because you’re talking about experimental deep space engines. What about the plasma engines being developed a crossed the world or even the elusive magnetic engines although I don’t know how much info you will find on them!

Thank you. These vids just get better and better.

Very good information and the way you do it is perfect.

It's very VERY long overdue to finally make use of nuclear power in space, beyond low power RTGs.....If we want fast, versatile interplanetary spacecraft, and have ever increasing payload capacity, so we can move beyond our current rather limited capabilities into a proper space age, we need nuclear power. Period. It saddens me to see we moved so little forward in this field in the past 60 years. At the same time I'm really glad that this technology is being picked up again!

Interesting video and nice shirt as usual! :)

i liked your shirts, your way of explaining is very calm & brilliant.

Excellent video, very informative!

If we want to move beyond the moon we must move beyond chemical rockets.

We should. Risk from nuclear energy are overblown

Love your stuff man. Good job.

Always enjoy and learn from your videos. Would love to see a follow-up video to this that references how realistic the "Pathfinder" shuttle using a Nerva engine from the show "For All Mankind" is.

One of my professors (my degree is in Nuclear Engineering) in college worked on the Kiwi and NERVA. He had a number of interesting stories about them. One of the things they did, not covered here, was do a destruction test where they let engine go without control. It was so powerful that it shock itself apart. He mentioned that they watched as the engine started shooting fuel rods out the nozzle as the engine sell destructed from the sheer amount of power and thrust it was putting out.

I like the use of Xenon-ion engines which are efficient for spaceships travelling between planets & in other deep space areas.

Looking forward to more vids.found it very interesting.cheers!

I have been listening to like.. 12 of your videos in the background while doing work and other things. I have no idea what youre talking about! haha! but you have a soothing voice and the low background music is nice.

I love how you can rewatch these videos as if they are brand new

Very good explaination. Thank you and keep up the good work Lord Varys.

Great summary :) It's inspiring to finally have a number of serious players focusing on a manned mars mission. Here's hoping we see boots on mars within this decade!

The background music is intoxicating. I love it.

i'm sick of all these good ideas not being used, everyone alive today will be dead before 1% of us are in space and other planets :(

That short sleeve shirt is lit AF. Good educational video 👏

nice video!! learned a lot!!

You are good and so is your channel. Thank you for the videos

With projects like NERVA and MSRE showing such promise over 50 odd years ago, it makes one wonder where society would be now if those and other programs had been allowed to continue. With the amazing efficiency of thermal rockets it's not too difficult to speculate that Mars missions would be something we would be talking about in the past tense in this day and age if NERVA would have continued. From asteroid mining to exploration of the Jovian system moons with a fuel tank refill right from the huge gas giant itself our knowledge of the solar system would be much further along today. As far as here traterrestrially, nuclear power could easily solve all of the world's energy needs and when I think of all the various technological advances that came about from the use of PWR, I wonder where society would be without the anti nuke stance that exists. The MSRE showed such amazing promise from the thorium breeder reactor cycle consuming nuclear waste and reducing storage times from tens of thousands of years to a few hundred to powering the world from essentially limitless supply of beach sand. Today we could be living in a different world with safe, essentially free electricity for everyone and all of the ramifications that go along with small modular emission free megawatt electrical power for developing countries. From limitless power production, electric vehicles, desalination for safe clean drinking water for everyone, to medical advancement with nuclear medicines. Affordable energy is proven to be the great key to end poverty and vastly improved people's lives. The space programs of the 60s and 70s and nuclear power were the fertile technological land our society of today was grown in and the positive reproductions we all benefit from everyday

3:11 That is a brilliant explanation of specific impulse. "How long in seconds one pound of propellant can deliver one pound of thrust." I've known about specific impulse for ages, but not really understood it before. Cheers.

I'd been looking for an explanation of NTP and specific impulse that I could understand. this is it. well done.

This page is by far the best updated information channel about whats going on in the space Industry right now

i love the narators woice its wery calming.

Getting to Mars in 45 days sounds great! It is my understanding that when the people land, it will be 18 months before the planets align correctly for a return trip. I am starting to think that the ship will need a gravity chamber and the astronauts should sleep in them and spend as much time in them as possible to prevent eye damage and circulation damage. Of course, the ship is also going to need as much radiation protection as possible. I also think if the journey does ever happen, they will need to send food. fuel, and supplies first that can anchor into the soil so they won't blow away during the wind storms. Then they have to try to land close to the supplies. I think the trip to Mars will take years of calculations and planning. The astronauts should be in top physical and mental condition as damage to their bodies from space travel is to be expected.

Awesome as usual - thanks

love your shirts. Also your videos are tops.

‘Tesla roaster’

If and when, the interest, in exploring the Solar system, reignites . Nuclear powered craft, are the best option. todate.

Wow that was well explained. Kudos.

As always great stuff lord varys

Love this guys shirts, lol

Dear mr. Curious Droid, mr. Korolev's name sounds a bit differently: there is a little confusioun about letter "e" there. We have two letters for different sounds: actual "E", wich sounds like in Chelomey, or Chernobyl; and letter "ё', or E with double dot above, wich sounds like "yo" in "Yorkshire". This confusion is because it's like everybody knows here, in Russia, wich letter is where, it's obvious for us, but not for foreigners. So, mr. Korolev should sound like "Korolyoff", i guess. Same thing with name "Fedor" (Emelianenko), wich should be "Fyodor". All of this is not important, but, i couldn't resist to mention about names overall and this name in particular. Thank you for great videos and lovely shirts!

I realy enjoyed watching this vidio grate vidio quality easy to understand and clear audio 🙂

one of the best channels on youtube, maybe the best one

And now I know why the nuclear engine in Kerbal is called the NERV

What I want to say is that this is the first time in my life that I have been asked if I wanted to use nuclear anything.... wish I’d been asked before.....

awesome, love the idea.

Excelent video, thank you.

I'm still holding out for Warp Drive. 😁

Nice Video. I hope I get selected as a flight surgeon astronaut for the upcoming Mars Mission.

3:10 That is an excellent simple example of what I_sp is. Great job!! Is college when I was becoming an Aerospace Engineer, that was a hard concept to fully understand as compared to lbf of thrust.

Thanks for sharing :-)

Lmao so that's why it's called the NERV rocket in KSP

I think they should use chemical rockets to bring up parts to a moon based factory, and build the nuclear powered rockets for Mars there. Launching a light weight rocket from there would be easier, and safer.

Well done!

Well your vids rule pal and well said so i will subscribe for more.! Have a nice week fella. :>)

I literally woke up on notification to watch this :) #notifSquad

I say yes to nuclear powered rockets

"Radiation,Weightlessness and Physiological issues" Thank you for mentioning the later, a very underrated problem. Once the TMI engine ignites the reality of PONR, Point Of No Return, will become reality and possibly panic in one or more crew members certainly sometime during the 10 month coast to Mars. I'm waiting for the government and private industry to give up on man to mars and focus on the moon for now until a propulsion breakthrough happens lowering transit time to Mars to weeks vs months.

I love this guy's shirts. He should have an online store.

*What shampoo do you use?*

What I think of nuclear rocket engines? Whelp ...SOUNDS AWESOME LET'S DO DIS! :)

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