Off to see PROJECT HAIL MARY today, and then I need to crack a story idea that’s been eluding me for two weeks, and tomorrow is solid scripting and prose writing all damn day, and then the weekend is all about washing out propagators and starting seeds. It’s going to be a cold weekend, and the light and spring warmth is supposed to come back next week… and I’m back to living in the weather changes. I suspect I’ll be losing an entire day next week to running the woodchipper and chopping holly wood into logs, in between planting raspberry canes and onions.
I missed this yesterday: NASA intends to send a probe to Mars on top of a nuclear-electric drive, Space Reactor-1 Freedom. It seems to be pretty much a test article – a year-long transit to Mars does not imply much in the way of breakthrough oomph, but the efficiency of nuclear-electric thrust does mean that once it’s dropped off its payload of helicopters at Mars there will be more than enough juice to send the thing off to Saturn.
Important to remember that this is nuclear-electric, not nuclear-thermal – therefore slower but “cleaner.” I don’t yet know enough to know if a bigger reactor will provide more nuclear-electric speed, so we’re still in sailing-ship transit times. I always thought I’d see a solved version of NERVA in my lifetime, but I guess not.
READING: NETTLES AND PETALS, Jamie Walton (UK) (US+), THE VISIONARIES, Wolfram Eilenberger (UK) (US+)
MISSION CONTROL: I can be contacted via the Cheng Caplan Company or Inkwell Management. Link in masthead to join my free newsletter.
Comments closed
