Reactors on the Launchpad: Project Prometheus

By Jerry Mechtenberg-Berrigan

On January 6, NASA landed the Mars rover Spirit, a six-wheeled, solar-powered SUV able to trek up to 44 yards per day across the Martian surface, collecting soil samples, analyzing geology, taking photographs, and looking for evidence of the previous existence of water. A second rover, Opportunity, landed on the opposite side of the Red Planet 19 days later and likewise set to work.

President Bush spoke at NASA headquarters January 14 and plucked the national heartstrings. “The desire to explore and understand is part of our character,” he crooned. Space travel, “improves our lives and lifts our national spirit... [Still] the thirst for human knowledge cannot be satisfied by even the most vivid pictures.”

Bush called for the quick resumption of Space Shuttle missions and for replacing the Shuttle with a “Crew Exploration Vehicle” (CEV) by 2008. The CEV, according to Bush, will begin ferrying humans to the moon by 2015. Thereafter the U.S. will construct a lunar base where mining operations will commence and from which missions will be launched “ to Mars and beyond.”

Public opinion polls revealed a distinct lack of public enthusiasm — as low as 9% in a Time/CNN poll — for spending billions of dollars to send people to Mars. In his State of the Union address, one week after his appearance at NASA, Bush made no mention of Mars, the moon or space travel. Some observers point to a short attention span and lack of focus on the part of the White House, but there’s more to it. Every goal Bush set in his January 14 speech has a nuclear reactor-powered engine, according to the folks at NASA. The nuclear-powered plan goes forward as we speak, but quietly. It’s an election year.

In February, Bush asked Congress for $480 million for Project Prometheus, formerly known as the Nuclear Systems Initiative. In Greek mythology Prometheus stole fire from the gods and gave it to humans. “The Nuclear Systems Initiative was a useful title,” explains the NASA website. “Today, only nuclear power can enable scientifically vital, but challenging missions.” The European Space Agency just proved this claim to be a fraud by launching a completely solar powered vehicle into deep space.

Opponents of nuclearizing space travel warn of the threat to public safety of putting reactors on launch pads. If a rocket or spacecraft carrying a significant quantity of uranium or plutonium fuel were to explode after launch (does the name Challenger ring a bell?), or burn up during a speed-boosting “flyby” around the Earth, the results would be catastrophic.

Bush has requested $3 billion over five years for Prometheus, but if the past is instructive we can expect the cost to balloon exponentially. The International Space Station, approved with an $8 billion price tag, is running at $32 billion and isn’t finished yet. “The belief is that if you really tell people what your honest estimates are, they’re not going to approve it,” said Roger Launius, former chief historian at NASA. When George H.W. Bush proposed a $400 billion Moon-Mars expedition in 1989, it was dropped.

NASA will work in conjunction with the U.S. Dept. of Energy and the Naval Reactors Division to develop a “lightweight reactor.” Naval Reactors Division is responsible for over 100 operating propulsion reactors, powering Navy ships and submarines.

The flagship mission under Project Prometheus is the “Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter” (JIMO), set to liftoff by 2015. The mission’s objective is “to search for signs of past and present life and to characterize the habitability of the Jovian moons with emphasis on Europa,” according to NASA.

The big three aerospace corporations are already profiting from the Prometheus scheme. Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Northrop Grumman have all been awarded two-part, $11 million research grants for the JIMO power plant. NASA will judge between the three and award the contract to the winner as early as next January.

In January 2002, the NASA director, Sean O’Keefe, told the Los Angeles Times, “We’re talking about doing something on a very aggressive schedule ... to develop the capabilities for nuclear propulsion ... [and] to have a mission using the technology within this decade.” NASA has tested two candidate power reactors thus far: a High Power Electric Propulsion (HiPEP) “nuclear ion engine” at NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland last November, and a Nuclear Electric Xenon Ion System (NEXIS) at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., last December.

What You Can Do

Research and development of the HiPEP engine is being carried out around the country: In Cleveland, at GRC and at Ohio Aerospace Institute; at Aerojet in Redmond, Wash.; Boeing in Torrence, CA; at the Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor; the Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison; and at Colorado State Univ. in Fort Collins. If any of these facilities are near you, consider going there with some friends and some signs. Likewise, protest at your local NASA facility for even pursuing this dangerous idea. Urge your congressional delegation to vote against nukes in space, and in this election year support candidates who will put nuclear space schemes on the shelf where they belong.

For more information, see the website of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space (www.space4peace.org). It may be equally instructive to visit www.nuclearspace.com, a slick industry website with flashy diagrams and loony ideas promoted incoherently.