Walking Eagle Nomination for the Ad Astra Rocket company
Dear Dr David Livingston and the Space Cynics , I would like to submit a Walking Eagle Award nomination for the Ad Astra Rocket company for their "Human Transportation to Mars" concept . The primary basis of my nomination is the size of the nuclear reactor proposed, but even if such a reactor and all the other support infrastructure to launch the mission from an Earth-Moon Lagrange point was available, and their propulsion technology actually worked, I think there is a very strong argument that such a fast transit decreases mission safety because it eliminates the free-return-trajectory abort mode. The only nuclear reactor the US has ever flown in space is the SNAP-10A, which produced a mere 650 watts of electrical power, from 45 kW of heat. The SP-100 reactor program, which were never flown, was to produce 100 kW of electrical power from 2 MW of heat. The Russians flew reactors which produced 3 kW to 5 kW of electrical power, and built some 40 kW reactors that were neve...