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This Defense Intelligence Reference Document, prepared in fiscal year 2010 by the Defense Intelligence Agency's Defense Warning Office under the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications (AAWSA) Program, reviews aneutronic fusion as a way to propel spacecraft. It compares chemical, ion, fission, fusion and antimatter propulsion, and it also covers radiation shielding and relativistic rocket calculations. It looks at research needs over the next 30 years for missions from low Earth orbit to Mars, Jupiter and Alpha Centauri.
From the source: Release of 2026-09-18 Incident: 11/1/10, Las Vegas, Nevada. Released with redactions. This document is a Defense Intelligence Reference Document (DIRD), a technical reference format used by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) to capture baseline knowledge on a specific topic for later analytic use. DIRDs are best understood as reference and synthesis products rather than as original research. It is one of 38 DIRDs produced under the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program (AAWSAP) between 2009 and 2011. Because AAWSAP’s scope permitted a broad range of supporting topics, not every DIRD in the series directly concerns aerospace systems or future threat assessment. The following summary reflects the DIRD’s scope and framing at the time of writing and should not be read as implying current validation of the concepts discussed. This DIRD surveys aneutronic fusion as a possible advanced space-propulsion method, focusing on fusion reactions that release most of their energy in charged particles rather than neutrons and therefore offer potential advantages over more neutron-intensive fusion concepts, especially in radiation shielding, direct energy conversion, and thrust generation. The report reviews the underlying rocket physics, compares candidate fusion fuels and ignition conditions, and gives particular attention to proton-boron and related schemes, while also discussing Bussard’s concepts and other fusion projects as representative development paths. It also makes clear that the central obstacle remains ignition and sustained net-energy fusion under practical conditions, and it notes additional problems such as x-ray energy losses from the hot plasma, extreme temperature requirements, and the gap between theoretical specific impulse and what proposed systems had demonstrated experimentally. Overall, the document presents aneutronic fusion propulsion as an attractive long-range concept for deep-space travel, but one whose practical realization still depended on major unresolved advances in fusion engineering.
UNCLASSIFIED//POlt Offl@IAL WS& &NkY Table 2: Rest Mass of Various Subatomic Particles Subatomic Particle Particle Name Mass (amu) a alpha 4.001506 13 beta 0.000549 ri neutron 1.008665 p proton 1.007276 D deuterium 2.014102 T tritium 3.016049 U-235 uranium 235.0439 Gamma rays, or photons, have no rest mass and only move at the speed of light (c = 3 x 108 m/s). Photons do have an effective mass since their momentum is given by p = me = h/A where h is Planck's constant (h = 6.626 x 10-34 J·s) and ,.\ is the wavelength of the photon. Particles also have energy, given by E = mc2 . Mass (m) was defined in equation 1.4. Particle or photon energy is usually expressed in terms of electronvolts (eV). Typical powers of eV are also used, including keV (1,000 eV) and MeV (1 million eV). For reference, 1 eV = 1.602 x 10-19 joules. NUCLEAR FISSION ROCKETS During the Cold War, the United States and the USSR developed designs for intercontinental ballistic missiles to carry nuclear weapons. Conventional rockets used highly reactive chemicals and, as an alternative power source, the use of nuclear fission reactors was explored. Project Rover, supervised by the U.S. Atom ic Energy Commission and the U.S. Air Force, developed specialized fission reactors with hydrogen propellant. A number of nuclear rockets were built and tested at the DOE Nevada Test Site (NTS) Area 25 in the 1950s. Nuclear fission reactors require a "moderator" to operate. The moderator slows down neutrons generated by fission and absorbs their energy. Hydrogen is nearly the perfect moderator and was chosen as the moderator and the propellant in the construction of the NERVA (1) rockets under Project Rover. Figure 4 shows the main components of a nuclear fission rocket. UNCLASSIFIED/fF&A &FFI&I:.l.k W&li &NkY 10
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