Defense Intelligence Reference Document Advanced Nuclear Propulsion For Manned Deep Space Missions

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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
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