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NASA announces plan for space nuclear propulsion by 2028
Yesterday NASA announced a series of initiatives, including plans to launch a nuclear electric propulsion spacecraft to Mars in December 2028 and a three-phase plan to establish a lunar base incorporating nuclear-driven heat and power.
Ryan P. Abbott, Jeffery F. Latkowski
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 52 | Number 4 | November 2007 | Pages 916-921
Technical Paper | Inertial Fusion Technology: Drivers and Advanced Designs | doi.org/10.13182/FST07-A1610
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Left unprotected, both transmissive and reflective final optics in a laser inertial fusion power plant would quickly fail from melting, pulsed thermal stresses, or degradation of optical properties as a result of ion implantation. One potential option for mitigating this threat is to magnetically deflect the ions such that they are directed into a robust energy dump. In this paper we detail integrated studies that have been carried out to assess the viability of this approach for protecting final optics.