Comment Re:Some potential, but hardly for a genuine leap (Score 1) 282
How is this any more than a revisiting of the ancient discredited NERVA/ROVER program which began in 1956 and dragged on to a miserable failed end in 1973?
That's exactly what it is. I think most people here realize that.
This shares the fundamental flaw of all rocket technology: the fact that any rocket has to carry and throw away a vast load of reaction mass. The Saturn V employed a total mass of 2970 tonnes to lift a mere 118 tonnes to LEO. But the actual raw energy needed to lift 118 tonnes to 200 km is E=mgh = 118,000 times 9.81 times 200,000 = 232 GJ, which is the quantity of energy contained in just 5.47 tonnes of gasoline. So the efficiency of the Saturn V was 0.184%, not because it was a "bad" rocket, but because it was a rocket.
Well, until someone comes up with a workable theory for a reactionless drive, we're stuck with reaction mass. But that doesn't mean we're stuck with chemical rockets - if you could accelerate you reaction mass to some nontrivial fraction of the speed of light you wouldn't need very much of it.