00:00In theory, this drive is known as nuclear electric propulsion or NEP.
00:07That is easier said than done, however, because there is a very, very big problem here that
00:12is often overlooked.
00:13I spoke with an expert about this and here is his explanation.
00:16You have to dissipate about 50 to 60% of the total power, meaning the thermal power, let's
00:24say 100 megawatts of thermal power right now, through cooling.
00:28Then we get 40 megawatts of electrical power out of it.
00:34That's totally awesome, that's how we power our engines.
00:37But as I said, we have to dissipate 60 megawatts of heat.
00:42And that's the big catch, because we have no air in space, we have no Danube in space,
00:48we only have space with a super high vacuum with no particles that we can heat up.
00:54And the problem with this is this thermal radiation that you have to get rid of.
00:58People love to say space is cold, space is cold.
01:01And that's true.
01:02But the cooling capacity is very low per unit area or volume.
01:10Please talk to us.
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