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Hey, i read a book ok science, i see the nasa whant to make ion energy or solar energy, to travel trought the space.....wut the big deal...
I just wonder why the nasa dont thing about the nuclear energy...
fist this kind of energy are unlimited
and we dont need to refulll it.. well am just confuse why they dont thing that before

Nuclear Energy is unlimited, but has very toxic remanants.

That simple.

Also, nuclear energy is NOT unlimited, you would have to pack a huge amount of highly radioactive material onto the spacecraft, which would cause outrage among civilians, as were the ship to crash, radioactive matter would be strewn throughout the world, causing some very nasty effects. Anyway, Ion technology works, as does solar, so why risk it with nuclear. Another interesting fact- some ships might use nuclear/ion, nuclear powering the ship's instruments, as well as generating fallout ideal for ion propulsion.

yeah, nuke energy is too toxic and polluting to be put on a spacecraft or rocket wivout a massive public outcry. also, if it DID crash or fail, the guy who authorised it would probably be seen as a hitler of sorts. no1 would risk it.

Anti matter Technology..!!!

No really.. I mean, Nuclear is the future, we'll have some batteries which work on nuclear, Nuclear cars, Nuclear coffee machine

No, nuclear is not the future. Nuclear energy is much too dangerous to be used in large amounts, let alone giving civilians small doses of it. Until we can efficiently control it and lessen the side-effects, it'll be kept to a minimum.

Nuclear energy could be the future if we clean it up and find a way to use the by-products.
But ion energy is extremely effecient and very clean. It can travel faster than rocket fuel (once we get it to work) and uses I think a tenth of the fuel/energy than rocket engines today.
Solor sails are also another very effective way for space travel. It doesn't require any energy to move the space craft (except to get into space) and it is extremely clean and fast. As long as you have a sun around you can travel for as long as you want.

If in the future we are able to repair any type of damage done to our bodies and regenerate and heal wounds, we might not even care about the damage done by radiation. We would just get it fixed.

Nuclear energy and the thing nasa wants to do, which is solar sails, are two very different things.

Solar sailing would be the cheapest way of space travel, which is why nasa is considering using it. Basically the sun emits photons (light), and to solar sail, you would deflect this energy off in one direction or another. It would have the same effects as sailing, which is why it was named so. They use the solar winds from the sun to direct the craft where to go.
It has everything to do with mirrors and absolutely nothing to do with radioactive particles.

Nuclear energy, on the other hand would have to be produced on the spacecraft itself. In itself that could be dangerous. (imagine a world where astronauts didn't have to only be masters of projectiles, acrobatics, and logarithmic calculations, but nuclear physics as well!)
Anti-matter, which is supposedly the future of space travel is very unstable, it would react with anything it touches. Plus there is no decent way to make it.

Overall, I think nasa knows what they are doing, solar sailing is the easiest, and most efficient way of travel.

Anti Matter would be like nuclear energy x 1000. Produces 1000 times the energy, but the meltdown explosion is 1000 times bigger. Like, if the Anti Matter touches any particle that is matter, big ass explosion.


Anyways, solar sailing? Would that not be... slow?

Until we manage to design and build a working ramjet, we will never have efficient free transportation.

At first, yes, it would be slow, but considering how little friction is encountered in space, solar sails can get stuff going pretty fast, as the speed added by a sun is greator than the speed lost from fricition with tiny particles in space.

Well, you would have to build up speed simply to escape the gravitation of the earth. Then you could simply keep going faster.

another reason why they dont consider nuclear energy is that it takes up a lot of space. if you look at the design of a nuclear plat u'll relize it's really a glorified steam engine. another argument agasitn nuclear is that it's very heavy, the current going price for putting things in space right now is roughly 2,000 dollars per pound. uranium is one of the densist materials, not only that but the uranium they use for nuclear power is a even denser type then normal uranium (yes there are different types of uranium) to get a sizable sum into space would be rather expensive compared to things like solar sails and other more light weight materials.


THey should use hydrogen power

Hydrogen is to expensive to make, and way to unstable.

UNSTABLE???? LMFAO are u kidding? the result of hydragen power is water, becuase we all know the deadly effects that water has on human beings.... do u know how hydrogen power works? here let me help explain, u store the hydrogen and oxygen in two seprate compartments, u have a hole big enough for hydrogen and not for oxygen so its a one way flow, the hydrogen is attempting to bond so it will go to the oxygen, from this movement they can take the hydrogens 1 electron and make it pass through a circut and act as electricity, the electron then rejoins the hydrogen atom which then bonds with the oxygen to form water. the expensive part is that the only way they know to seperate the electron from the hydrogen atom is through a specially designed platinum membrane. Hydrogen power is very stable, the two things stopping it from being popular right now is the fact that to convert form diseal to hydrogen power would require mass scale conversions of everyday life, another problem is the limited supplies a platinum. this isnt so much of a limit for nasa considering their history of working with exotic metals.

I always though Nuclear power was clean, fast and long lasting. But producing the 'engine' for it emits radioactivity e.i waste. And its too bulky.

Um... Okay?

If it is so simple to create Hydrogen Power, like you say it is, answer this.

Why don't we use it in cars?

Not just because of the engine, but because it's to unstable! >.<

um u might actually try reading the entire post before posting questions, becuase they might just have been ansewerd already. if this isn't clear enough id be happy to go into more detail about the matter.

Hydrogen fuel cells are not unstable at all. You can store the fuel as water and use a battery to extract the hydrogen through electrolysis. like Rhiom said the platinum would be ahrd to obtain in mass quantities. NASA should defenantly stop using liquid fuel as something like 98% of the fuel is used to propel the weight of the other fuel and the tank. A far more effective system would be a railgun for main propulsion and some fuel for minor trajectory adjustment. The best method (BY FAR) for powering earth would be making nannites once the technology improves and use solar.

Some people have made their cars run on it, but refuelling is difficult due to the fact that there are no stations with additional fuel.

I don't think that stability would be a problem unless the car became seriously damaged and the hydrogen and oxygen were allowed to mix freely.

2H2 + O2 --> 2H2O

∆Hf˚H2O(g) = -242kJ/mol

So, ∆Hreaction = 2 * -242 = -484kJ/mol

Ok, so 484kJ is a hell of a lot of energy to be released considering that you only need 2g of Hydrogen and 16g of Oxygen to release it. This is why a leaking tank and a naked flame could be disastrous. Say you had a pinhole leak and the gas was ignited: the tank would spew flames until it ran low on hydrogen, at which point the flame would be sucked into the tank and it would blow up the remaining fuel. If we have self-sealing membranes and stuff inside the tanks, then this shouldn't be too much of a risk. Also, the huge amount of energy released and lack of carbon-containing waste products means that hydrogen energy is efficient and clean.

Also, 1 mole of any gas takes up 24dm3 (24 litres) of space under standard conditions. This means that the hydrogen will have to be seriously pressurised to get much range (or the tanks would have to be very big), assuming that the fuel cells store it as a gas. If the hydrogen could be stored as a liquid, then you could fit a lot more in a tank, but it has a boiling point of -252C (-423F or 20K), so it would be economically unviable.

Sorry if I've sounded like a mad scientist, but these are my reasons for why hydrogen isn't a great fuel for cars...yet.

correct your are captin will, as far as the open flame and the leaks go though, this is just a relavent problem when you look at diesal fuels that we use now, whihc really are only controlled explosions.

Soon we will have oxygen/hydrogen problems and then those prices will sky rocket and then we will be back to square one again.

I really doubt that. The oceans of the world consist of water - H20, and it is possible to separate and extract those gases from it. We then burn the hydrogen in oxygen as fuel, and it becomes water again.

Unfortunately, this is only about 60% efficient (as we have to use energy to turn the water into free hydrogen and oxygen in the first place), but it's more efficient than using hydrocarbons, because you need a hell of a lot more energy to separate crude oil into all its various fractions before it becomes usable.

The problem then becomes after extensive electrolosis of water we will lose water as that is not infinite water is not created just recycled we should just learn to harness the awsome power of methane for that is infinite