Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Propellant velocity
Message-ID: <1991May25.215849.15606@zoo.toronto.edu>
Date: Sat, 25 May 1991 21:58:49 GMT
References: <12344@uwm.edu> <1991May22.164754.22298@zoo.toronto.edu> <12430@uwm.edu>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology

In article <12430@uwm.edu> markh@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (Mark William Hopkins) writes:
>>What latest research?  There is only the barest dribble of research,
>>and no development of flight-worthy hardware to speak of.
>
>Personally, I was expecting to hear an answer like: "the USAF is currently
>conducting research with fission-based propulsion with expellant velocities
>as high as 1000 KILOMETERS per second."

At any given time, there are a handful of very small research projects
in advanced propulsion active.  They come and go, and mostly don't lead
anywhere because they never get funded to do anything more than research.
We've had the research underpinnings for advanced-propulsion development
since the 1960s.  (We know more now, but we knew *enough* even then.)
What's lacking is development money for real hardware.

>No development?  Say it ain't so.

Wish I could.
-- 
"We're thinking about upgrading from    | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
SunOS 4.1.1 to SunOS 3.5."              |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu  utzoo!henry