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It can be done with chemical rocket fuels, but it just takes more and it won't go as fast. It may also have to be assembled, fueled, and fitted while in orbit. The use oif nuclear fuels would delay such a project almost indefinitely. If the research doesn't take a long time the politics definitely will.

A manned Mars mission cannot be economically done with chemical fuels. It would require hundreds of launches to assemble the spaceship and with cost overruns it could be over a trillion dollars. If this were economically feasible it would have already been done but instead the funding always get cut.

Only a nuclear powered rocket can get a man to Mars before the funding for the project gets cut but the environmentalists in the United States or Russia will never allow such a mission especially if it involves atmospheric atomic explosions.

Islamic countries such as Iran , Pakistan and India would be insane enough to launch an atomic rocket and Israel would let them under the condition that every single atomic weapon that they possess would be confiscated and used to propel the rocket. A manned Mars mission especially a nuclear one would be much more glorious than a nuclear war with Israel.

[quote="androbot2084"
Islamic countries such as Iran , Pakistan and India would be insane enough to launch an atomic rocket and Israel would let them under the condition that every single atomic weapon that they possess would be confiscated and used to propel the rocket. A manned Mars mission especially a nuclear one would be much more glorious than a nuclear war with Israel.[/quote]

There is as yet no proof that this system will work safely.

Besides which Muslims are much more into fasts and martyrdom that space adventures.

ruveyn

As far as the objection that atomic bombs would blow up the ship, in 1958 a model rocket was launched as a proof of concept that proved the ship would not blow up.

Using fission bombs in Antarctica the radiation death toll would be 1 to 10 people. Hydrogen bombs would reduce the death toll even further. The other alternative is to nuke Jerusalem which would kill millions. A Mars mission makes the Mideast safer because it gets rid of all of the atomic bombs.

Muslims like blowing things up so a Mars mission satisfies their nuclear pyromaniac ambitions without killing anyone. Muslims are also into suicide missions so if they want to be the first to get to Mars they don't need to wait to develop the technology to safely land on Mars but rather a one way crash landing suicide mission would work fine for them. If they survive the crash they get to humiliate the infidel by getting all the glory of being the first man to get to Mars. There is no glory in a nuclear war with Israel because everyone will be dead soon after the war starts. Space travel is infinitely more glorious than war.

Why are you so hellbent on creating a ship using nuclear fuel for booster rockets?

Why do you claim a nuclear powered rocket = atomic bomb rocket? And how would an atomic bomb rocket even work? You would annihilate the ship.

Nuclear Power used to create energy or utility is not in any way the same functionally as an atomic weapon. The weaponized versions are designed precisely as atom smashers to cause chain reactions that create the explosions. (IE either the fission version, or the Fusion version which is enabled with a fission based trigger.) This is of course a simple explanation for something enormously complex.

A nuclear power plant, is in no way the same design. You do not create nuclear weapons with the nuclear design found in nuclear power facilities. The worst you can get from nuclear facilities are catastrophic meltdowns like chernobyl where the radiation leaks everywhere into the soil, water, and atmosphere. It does not release a nuclear explosion. Likewise, a nuclear powered rocketship would be equipped similarly to how a nuclear powered submarine works. They are not powered by blowing up nuclear bombs. That would be both suicidal and stupid. The purpose of utilizing nuclear designs as fuel is to create an immense release of energy at a steady pace, to derive significant work with limited input. This is collected in output in multiple forms, the big one being heat.

So while you are correct, in saying nuclear POWERED rockets would be more efficient, you are not necessarily correct in saying it is the only viable method. It is perhaps the best method. However, a chemically powered manned mars mission is possible, regardless of whether you believe it to be true. The costs are significantly higher than a moon mission, with little to no profit. This is the more striking reason why it has not happened. It is not because a chemical powered rocket is impossible on a mission to mars. Once you are in space there is little in the way of debris and large gravitational input to prevent you from decelerating. As a result you only need enough to acquire a suitable speed, and then simply avoid that which would apply significant force against you, resulting in you wasting more fuel.

The biggest concern is food storage. However, this could be handled with Several methods:

1. More Sleep, thus lowering the overall waste of body energy to metabolism or work.
2. More Compact food with Higher nutritional and caloric content.
3. More space in the ship, but not significant enough to require enormously gains in weight which would need significantly more fuel. (Perhaps a maximum increase in mass of 10% to 15%)
4. A craft made of stronger lighter materials. (This would also allow more space for food)
5. A craft with more compact electronics. (Again this would allow more space for food)
6. Small changes to the Design of the rocket to make it more efficient and allow for a small increase in the threshold of speed. (Even if the speed increase was only 10 to 25% faster than current design that would have significant impact in roundtrip).

Alone these items seem useless. However, combined improvements would allow a manned trip to be much safer, and possible. It would also reduce cost.

During the first atomic bomb test at Trinity it was found that the tower which held the bomb in place was not vaporized but rather the steel parts of the tower were found thrown a few miles from the explosion.

Stanislaw Ulam inventor of the hydrogen bomb theorized that spaceships could be propelled using atomic bombs and these spaceships could reach the stars. No chemically powered rocket could ever get us to the stars.

If it were economically possible to use chemical rockets to get us to Mars it would have been done by now. A chemical mission to Mars would require 100 launches in order to assemble the spaceship and would take us 500 days to get to mars. A nuclear Mars mission could be done with with a single rocket with a single stage and would take only 40 days to arrive at Mars.

Atomic and hydrogen bombs have the energy density of thousands even millions of times the energy density of our best chemical fuels which are feeble by comparison. Without nuclear power colonization of Mars will be impossible.

Earths most powerful experimental fusion reactors like PACER and NIF use hydrogen bombs as a source of power.

At a net loss. More power goes in than comes out. Such reactors are not sustainable.

Don't worry. Nuclear fusion is 30 years in the future and will stay there for the next hundred years.

ruveyn

The last NASA Mars reference mission (5.0) takes 7 launches of a large rocket to assemble and goes to Mars using an NTR (nuclear thermal rocket). Not atomic weapons. Whether it will finally use some form of electric drive or an NTR, it's not going be nuclear bombs.

Werner Von Braun championed the use of atomic bombs rather than nuclear thermal rockets to propel spaceships to Mars.

And again you need a ship that can actually sustain itself in the immense amount of force released by an atomic bomb. We DO NOT have anywhere close to such a structure in existence. Having debris leftover is possible. However, a single impervious ship that can withstand the force of the blast is no where in the near future. Do you have any idea the amount of force in G's a nuclear bomb releases? All known metallic and carbon based compounds we can use will warp, rip, or be annihilated in the face of such a force.

Not to mention the other problems:

- The extreme heat. The heat of the direct blast could easily melt or partly vaporize a material even if it somehow could maintain itself from the force. It needs to be able to both withstand itself in the face of force and in the face of such extreme heat.

- Radiation. You cannot set off a nuclear bomb powered rocket if the radiation extends into the hull and effects the crew inside. In present day, a nuclear bomb powered rocket would quickly sicken and kill the crew. There would simply be too much radiation at such a close blast to be able to protect the crew. At such a close distance, even fractions of a percent that breaches the hull will be able to damage and kill the crew inside. Do not confuse Nuclear powered radiation emission with the emissions in a bomb. In a bomb the entirety of the radioactive elements will be released at once, requiring a much more protective shell for the crew. And since you would likely need multiple bombs(minimum of four; one to propel, one to stop yourself at mars. One for the return trip and one to stop yourself at the return trip), this would need to be exceedingly efficient at limiting radiation exposure. The violence of the explosion will also release broad spectrum radiation. The shield will need to be able to protect against all fatal forms.

- G-Force experienced in the interior. The force will ripple through the ship even if it itself was somehow able to hold together. This will almost certainly kill the crew instantaneously, if not liquify them. You will need one hell of a dampening system(Likely a chain of dampening systems. In order to effectively do this and sustain the crew you would almost certainly need to dedicate 9/10 of the entire volume of the ship just for a chamber that allows living quarters and bridge to move around within the hull. Even then, expect exceedingly high G-Forces for the crew. This dampening system must also be able to sustain itself like the hull.

- Heat Transfer. You need to keep it cold inside when the bomb goes off, or the crew will fry as the ship's interior atmosphere rapidly heats.

- EMP Protection. Atomic devices have a tendency to create immense EMP fields. You need to protect the electronic equipment from these effects or the ship will drift and the crew will eventually die.

- Pressure maintenence. IF the pressure inside the ship changes too dramatically expect catastrophic failure from any gases/liquids located in the ship's design. The compressed designs will fragment and rupture and the ship will tear itself apart from the inside. Then the crew if not dead already, will gradually lose oxygen, as the system is compromised and eventually asphyxiate.

- More Problems that I am not going into. I probably can't think of them all.

What you are proposing is ENORMOUSLY complex. A nuclear powered design will come decades if not centuries(possibly millenia), before a nuclear bomb powered rocket exists. It is more sustainable, and easier to create. Do not confuse The theory of past scientists with the logistics and reality of such a feat. Just because something is theoretically sound, does not make it realistically sound. You need to account for all variables, not just whether it is feasibly possible within the physics of the universe.

Actually a trip to Mars would be possible to do with chemical fuels, if the space craft was assembled in orbit. Friction is negligible in space, so it doesn't take lots and lots of fuel if you can get escape velocity from orbit.

we barely need chemical fuel if we are in orbit,

VASIMR is faster than any chemical rocket but with a lower specific impulse, it mainly uses electricity and a miniscule amount of inert gas(in relation to chemcial at least)

the VASIMR will be tested on ISS.

from LEO it would take 39 days by their calculations to go to mars.

Von Braun's plan for a Mars mission in 1969 used nuclear thermal rockets. NASA and Los Alamos were developing NTR at the time. They were not developing an atom bomb powered space ship, for many reasons.

NASA's last Mars plan from 2007 also uses NTR:

http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi. ... 010520.pdf

But it takes lots and lots of fuel to ship the parts up to orbit PLUS the fuel for the departure. The fuel must be brought up the gravitational incline one way or the other. Do it at once or do it in pieces.

ruveyn