Quoted By:
But it was not only moon program that was axed.
Back in 1960s, Los Alamos lab was building a fucking NUCLEAR ROCKET.
Reviewers in (((academia))) were constantly claiming that the shit cannot work, then year later the lab was delivering something which was actually exceeding expectations. It literally went like this:
> this cannot work
> protype fired up, works on the first time
> it won't produce enough thrust
> hey, look, it just did
> it cannot work long enough to reach escape velocity (10-20 minutes)
> prototype works for hours, post-test analysis shows it could burn for days if it had enough fuel
> it's not safe
> yes, it's is
> no it's not
> turn off safeties, engine explodes, no damage beyond the test stand, army cleans the site in one day
> it's too big, scale it down
> sure thing, here's a version which can fly on the shuttle
> SHUT IT DOWN!
1 cubic meter reactor chamber
1 gigawatt thermal power
if used as Saturn V third stage, 200 tons to Earth orbit, 100 tons to Mars or Moon via Hohmann transfer
if used as a crew shuttle, 12h Earth orbit to the Moon, refuel and go back
You have no idea how much was literally destroyed.
