Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771
ENGINEERING COLLOQUIUM
Monday, May 18, 2009 / 3:30 PM, Building 3 Auditorium
James A. Dewar
"To The End Of The Solar System: The Story Of The Nuclear Rocket"
ABSTRACT -- An inextricable link exists between politics and technology and To the End of the Solar System tells the story of that linkage for the NASA's nuclear rocket program, Project Rover/NERVA (1955-1973). This talk, however, breaks that linkage to concentrate on the technical to dispel the myths, misconceptions and even "fear" about nuclear rockets. It will review key problems and how they were solved, it will address the "fear" of accidents and environmental "risks," including a reactor "blowing up on the launch pad," and show how they are misplaced, and it will consider the differing assumptions on developing nuclear rockets and how they proved wrong. In other words, though it was hard, developing nuclear rocket engines was a lot easier, faster and less costly than originally believed. This lesson holds true for today, and sets the stage for my next book - The Nuclear Rocket: Making Our Planet Green, Peaceful and Prosperous - which argues using them to reach LEO results in a fundamentally new, democratic and burgeoning private sector space program.
SPEAKER -- James Dewar received his BA from Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois, his MA from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and his PhD from Kansas State University in Manhattan. He majored in history and political science throughout, specializing in the interaction of technology and science and politics. He joined NASA as a summer intern in the History Office in 1969, where his interest in nuclear rockets started. He joined the Atomic Energy Commission in 1972, where he worked for Chairman Dixy Lee Ray. He remained there as the AEC was changed ultimately into the Department of Energy and specialized in nuclear policy issues: testing, nonproliferation, export control, environmental, technology transfer from the nuclear weapons complex, and intelligence. He retired from the DOE in 1994 and has been researching and writing his books on the nuclear rocket.