Sic 'Em, Rover

When the Kennedy Administration canceled research on the nuclear airplane last March, it seemed that the nuclear-propelled rocket, which is even more difficult to build, might be grounded too. But in San Francisco last week at a meeting of the American Ordnance Association, Glenn T. Seaborg, chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, gave a highly hopeful report on the atomic missile. The first one, he said, may be ready for blast-off by 1965.

In any missile, the efficiency of the engine is limited by the quality of its fuel. And as chemically fueled engines approach peak efficiency, the fuel they require becomes increasingly difficult to manage. But a nuclear rocket--in which hard-to-handle hydrogen will be heated by an atomic reactor--would offer ample recompense for its built-in problems. Its thrust, Seaborg explained, would be far greater than that available from any combination of chemical fuels; it would open the way to space voyages impossible with any other missile.

The Rover (nuclear rocket) program, Seaborg said, has already tested a ground-bound model. Kiwi-A. It has demonstrated that a nuclear reactor can heat a flow of high-pressure gaseous hydrogen to proper operating temperature and can keep in operation as long as needed in a space vehicle. The more advanced Kiwi-B. which will be tested soon in Nevada, will use liquid hydrogen for its propellant.

Seaborg assured his audience that a great deal of ground testing will be done before a fiercely radioactive nuclear rocket is fired aloft. "We must plan." he said, "to handle the maximum credible accidents that might arise in the launching of a nuclear rocket, its malfunction or abort, its re-entry into the earth's atmosphere, and the ultimate disposition of the nuclear engines and power units in space. I am cautiously optimistic that solutions are at hand."

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