n-the sky - certainly no-one reading this article now is going to be using them personally in their own lifetime.

So what is the answer? Is there a technology that would allow cheap, reliable reusable spaceships today? Surprisingly the answer is YES! Are we going to get them? Very possibility.

It's just passed the thirtieth anniversary of the last man even to visit the moon and in an attempt to get a flagging space travel sector going the Ansari X PRIZE has been awarded to SpaceShipOne for matching and then slightly exceed the performance of the old X-15 spaceplane of nearly fifty years ago.

Is this then end? Will space travel taper off into a few high altitude fun rides to give pleasure to the rich and slightly famous? Maybe not - here looks at a different way that brings us back to the expectations of the 1930s not the let downs of the 1980s.

The popular media and fantasy fiction surround us with a lot of talk about exotic spaceship propulsion systems - talking about them gives the impression of progress - they sound cool and impressive without having to run the risk of anyone ever being expected to deliver on them. Let's look at what we are going to discount here. There's Anti-matter, Catapult Launchers, Laser Propulsion, Microwaves Propulsion (actually first postulated in the 1930's by E.E.Doc Smith), Magnetic Sails, Space Sails, Nuclear Fusion, Space elevators, Zero-point energy. The problem is we don't have the technology to hand for any of these- so they are all pretty much pie-in-the sky - certainly no-one reading this article now is going to be using them personally in their own lifetime.

So what is the answer? Is there a technology that would allow cheap, reliable reusable spaceships today? Surprisingly the answer is YES! Are we going to get them? Very possibility.

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Is this then end? Will space travel taper off into a few high altitude fun rides to give pleasure to the rich and slightly famous? Maybe not - here looks at a different way that brings us back to the expectations of the 1930s not the let downs of the 1980s.

The popular media and fantasy fiction surround us with a lot of talk about exotic spaceship propulsion systems - talking about them gives the impression of progress - they sound cool and impressive without having to run the risk of anyone ever being expected to deliver on them. Let's look at what we are going to discount here. There's Anti-matter, Catapult Launchers, Laser Propulsion, Microwaves Propulsion (actually first postulated in the 1930's by E.E.Doc Smith), Magnetic Sails, Space Sails, Nuclear Fusion, Space elevators, Zero-point energy. The problem is we don't have the technology to hand for any of these- so they are all pretty much pie-in-the sky - certainly no-one reading this article now is going to be using them personally in their own lifetime.

So what is the answer? Is there a technology that would allow cheap, reliable reusable spaceships today? Surprisingly the answer is YES! Are we going to get them? Very possibility.

rround us with a lot of talk about exotic spaceship propulsion systems - talking about them gives the impression of progress - they sound cool and impressive without having to run the risk of anyone ever being expected to deliver on them. Let's look at what we are going to discount here. There's Anti-matter, Catapult Launchers, Laser Propulsion, Microwaves Propulsion (actually first postulated in the 1930's by E.E.Doc Smith), Magnetic Sails, Space Sails, Nuclear Fusion, Space elevators, Zero-point energy. The problem is we don't have the technology to hand for any of these- so they are all pretty much pie-in-the sky - certainly no-one reading this article now is going to be using them personally in their own lifetime.

So what is the answer? Is there a technology that would allow cheap, reliable reusable spaceships today? Surprisingly the answer is YES! Are we going to get them? Very possibility.

r, Catapult Launchers, Laser Propulsion, Microwaves Propulsion (actually first postulated in the 1930's by E.E.Doc Smith), Magnetic Sails, Space Sails, Nuclear Fusion, Space elevators, Zero-point energy. The problem is we don't have the technology to hand for any of these- so they are all pretty much pie-in-the sky - certainly no-one reading this article now is going to be using them personally in their own lifetime.

So what is the answer? Is there a technology that would allow cheap, reliable reusable spaceships today? Surprisingly the answer is YES! Are we going to get them? Very possibility.

n-the sky - certainly no-one reading this article now is going to be using them personally in their own lifetime.

So what is the answer? Is there a technology that would allow cheap, reliable reusable spaceships today? Surprisingly the answer is YES! Are we going to get them? Very possibility.

So what are they? Well its called the Nuclear thermal rocket, the prototypes were made thirty years ago and work just fine - and the time to get them might be just in the next ten years.

So how do they work?

In a nuclear thermal rocket a working fluid, which can be plain ordinary water, is heated in a high temperature nuclear reactor, and then expands through a rocket nozzle to create thrust. The nuclear reactor's energy replaces the chemical energy of the reactive chemicals in a traditional rocket engine. Due to the high energy of the nuclear reactions compared to chemical ones, over 100 times, the resulting efficiency of the engine is at least twice as good as chemical engines even considering the weight of the reactor. The ship doesn't have to very anything fancy - all the super lightweight materials and astronomical costs, and the need for multiple stage rockets - having to throw most of your spaceship away every time - all comes from the low thrust of chemical rockets. So the bottom line is that a a nuclear thermal rocket like the Timberwind 75 put into a tried and tested load carrier like the old German A4 (over three thousand were made as V2s - and back again in the Ansari X PRIZE entrant -