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This Defense Intelligence Reference Document from the Defense Intelligence Agency, dated 11 March 2010, was produced under the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications (AAWSA) Program. It argues that spaceships powered by deuterium thermonuclear reactions could be built with current science and technology. The paper covers ignition by GeV proton beams, magnetic insulation, the Super Marx generator and conjectured chemical superexplosives, and it concludes that such craft could make manned exploration of the entire solar system possible.
“BEAMS”18 pages
UNCLASSIFIED//F8R 8PPl!ltllt USE Uiltf Introduction As Hermann Oberth proved for chemical rockets in his 1923 book The Rocket into Planetary Space (Reference 6), this paper will try to prove for thermonuclear rockets the following: • At the present state of science and technology one can build spaceships driven by deuterium thermonuclear reactions, able to reach the outer limits of the solar system. • Such spaceships permit the manned exploration of the entire solar system and beyond, with the ultimate potential to reach nearby solar systems. • The cost in research and development to build such spaceships will be high but still well within what is economically feasible. • Using the same physical principles as for deuterium fusion rockets will also lead to the realization of clean nuclear energy, justifying the expenditures for these large projects. Deuterium can be used as the rocket fuel of choice in addition to any inert material that is suitable as a propellant. This propellant material is available on most planetary bodies and particularly on the comets of the Oort cloud. The main idea is that by gradual radial expansion from the Sun by building bridges over the Oort clouds, which presumably surround all suns, Earthlike planets in neighboring solar systems can eventually be reached. The first and most important step toward this goal is to reach the focus of the Einstein gravitational lens at 550 AU (astronomical units). At this location, one can use the Sun as the lens of a super telescope, an idea first proposed by Claudio Maccone in 1993. Present knowledge is that there are planets in nearby solar systems that are likely Earthlike planets. It is only with this gigantic telescope that one can determine if life on these planets is possible. But because of the complexity of this task, a manned mission to the Einstein gravitational lens focus is likely to be needed, possible only with advanced nuclear rocket propulsion. Deuterium, Argon Ion Lasers, and KeV Superexplosives The goal is a spacecraft that can be refueled while landing on a planetary body, which can be a planet, an asteroid, or a comet. With heavy water available on many planetary bodies but in particular on comets, this suggests the use of deuterium (D) as the thermonuclear rocket fuel. Ignition of deuterium though, is more difficult than ignition of the deuterium-tritium (DT) reaction or of the deuterium-helium3 (DHe 3 ) reaction. The DT reaction is the easiest to ignite, but 80 percent of the energy goes into neutrons, which cannot be deflected by a magnetic mirror. In the DHe 3 reaction all the energy goes into charged fusion products, but in a mixture of D with He3 there are still some neutron-producing deuterium-deuterium (DD) reactions. More important is the fact that, unlike deuterium, He3 is largely unavailable. There is some indication of He3 on the surface of Moon. In the Daedalus starship study by the British Interplanetary 1 UNCLASSIFIED/ ,'f81il 8ffl@Itllt ~:!I! 8HLY
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Report, from the dia collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. 37 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.