Giant Rocket Plume - Nuclear Saltwater Rocket Concept Discussion

[Bab5space]

This is not a spaceflight based forum, so I do not expect all to be familiar with Zubrin's nuclear saltwater rocket concept. Basically a rocket that uses plutonium or uranium salts in water to start a nuclear chain reaction which is supposed to happen somehow outside the engine (as it is getting expelled as exhaust?).

The result is to combine the TWR of the nuclear pusher plate concept (AKA Project Orion, a relic of the Cold War) with the constant thrust of a rocket.

Scifi can improve on that and here is where discussion comes:

Imagine a rocket reaction chamber that literally detonates a nuke inside. And shoots it out the nozzle.

Just assume the engine and nozzle are strengthened by strong force manipulation or something.

Would not the nuclear blast shot out the nozzle into the atmosphere look like a giant plume?

Morphing into an ice cream cone as it expands with a shockwave?

Discuss.

 

[russ_watters]

Would not the nuclear blast shot out the nozzle into the atmosphere look like a giant plume?

Morphing into an ice cream cone as it expands with a shockwave?

Sure. A plume with pulses, though. Like from a pulse-jet engine.

 

[mfb]

You increased the solid angle coverage of the pusher plate a bit, basically. Potentially a little bit more thrust but much more stress for the plate.

In space nuclear explosions don't make nice shockwaves. You get some debris from the nuclear weapon that flies apart at high speed, many individual atoms flying away, and radiation expanding in a sphere at the speed of light (for an observer it looks like a single very brief flash of light). That's it.