Curious Droid is brain candy for engineers and historians. I’m “curious” what field Paul Shillito’s formal training (if any) is in. Well done documentaries Paul! These are better than many major broadcaster’s productions.

If Paul Shillito's hard work, quality animation, deep research, and amazing interviews aren't enough to make you give to his patreon page....his over the top eye blasting shirt deserves the donation at least.

“ you can either go faster or carry more payload” Kerbal: Slower than a turtle and Medium payload, take it or leave it

Not long ago I've subscribed to this channel when it had about 20,000 subs, and I can say with the utmost certainty - this channel is a case study on how to make an excellent channel with amazing content

What I really like about these videos is that you can really feel that a lot of effort was put into research on the specific topics. Even if you were already into the subject before you can still learn something new...which is very often not the case with TV documentaries. Therefore: thanks! Keep up the good work!

Wall-E used a fire extinguisher to great effect. I think we should focus on fire extinguisher propulsion technology.

I worked on the Rover engine early in my engineering career, and was impressed by the test results being achieved at Los Alamos. This engine was not firmly linked to any certain space mission, but simply offered efficiency advantages. As such, Congress eventually lost its enthusiasm for the concept, and resulting funding cuts shelved our work in the late sixties.

the man with the shirt of a thousand guitar picks actually helped me understand specific impulse. thanks sir

Sounds interesting. Being able to get to mars in 45 days would open up a whole world of possibilities

I want to keep it short and sweet like your videos, absolutely astonishing! By that I mean how much concise clear information you convey in a short amount of time. I give your efficiency around 9 9 9, LOL keep it up as I find myself getting addicted to your videos!

This music is the music they play during reflection scenes in 80's movies. The scenes where something bad or intense just happened like someone they cared about died and the character is reflecting on it all depressed. Driving in their car to a random destination while the camera that has been pointed at their face goes outside and pans away into the distance.

Thanks for clarifying clarifying the current trajectory of the roadster, it seemed to me that they had missed the window for the route to intercept Mars but I haven't seen it announced anywhere.

NERVA from 1964 is superior to anything we use today. NERVA redesigned with modern materials will be even more so.

To Mars in 45 days, that would be a proper commute! Although the time windows for that are probably short, it would be super handy for crew and cargo transports. Perhaps an array of space stations across the Mars / Earth orbits could be used to shorten routes when Mars/Earth aren't in ideal position to one another. For this to happen, it probably would have to be proven first that interplanetary cargo transports can yield astronomical profits. Mars' soil probably contains all kinds of materials that are rare on Earth. We probably need a functioning space industry first before we can think about lucrative space tourism and settlements. How to kickstart this is one of the greatest challenges.

Absolutely, nuclear power is virtually untapped. I’m all for it.

A nuclear reactor paired with a VASIMR engine would be the best combination. Xenon and argon, gases it can use for fuel, are noble gases, therefore easier to store compared to hydrogen, which requires complex systems to store for long periods of time. Also, even though the thrust is lower, it doesn't matter in space. Specific impulse is the key here, and even though the burns would be longer it would overall result in more payload capacity and faster transfers.

The fuel in a nuclear rocket is either plutonium, uranium, or thorium. The LH2 is the reaction mass. That's an important distinction.

An interesting concept would be to make the reactor part of the payload. It'd be awfully useful, when setting up a colony, to have a few hundred MW of energy that doesn't involve solar panels for miles. Use electrical propulsion with high Isp and eat the increased transit time for the sake of having lots of energy colony-side.

This video is a masterpice. The collected material, the accuracy of informations, the concise language and the smooth melody’s in the background! It is a masterpiece!

It's very VERY long overdue to finally make use of nuclear power in space, beyond low power RTGs.....If we want fast, versatile interplanetary spacecraft, and have ever increasing payload capacity, so we can move beyond our current rather limited capabilities into a proper space age, we need nuclear power. Period. It saddens me to see we moved so little forward in this field in the past 60 years. At the same time I'm really glad that this technology is being picked up again!

Shirts keep getting better and better

This channel is great, thank you for the work you do to give us these videos!

The efforts he puts in speaking for the microphone to be able to capture the words correctly enough to be recognizable is beyond inspirational.

Mr. Shillito's delivery of information and narration was A+ all the way. This is great lay person, of the intellectually curious sort, intellectual stimulation. The nuclear propulsion, in-space- configured, does seem the most sensible. I would prefer a more tethered set up where the engine is more remote, say, a mile forward, or a quarter mile to the rear. Even a butterfly set up would be better than a Texas highway truck and boat trailer set up. Put the engine between two Mars going craft.

Go, nuclear! Should never have stopped! We'd be across the Solar System by now.

I always enjoy watching your videos great narration very professional quality stuff you can tell you put a lot of effort into this and it shows one of my favourite channels. All the best from North Wales

Very good explaination. Thank you and keep up the good work Lord Varys.

I love how you can rewatch these videos as if they are brand new

@04:59 Watch closely the explosion. It took less than 3 seconds to deploy the fire extinguishers. THAT’s impressive!

Thanks lord Varys, I always follow your channel

Tip #1 for making an educational video: Get a guy with a British accent. ;-)

If we want to move beyond the moon we must move beyond chemical rockets.

Very informative! I always associated nuclear space propulsion with an Orion drive. Thanks for detailing some of the other (less destructive) options :)

Paul, I enjoy all your topics of discussion and because you’re talking about experimental deep space engines. What about the plasma engines being developed a crossed the world or even the elusive magnetic engines although I don’t know how much info you will find on them!

Love your videos. Very informative and easy to follow. I have my grandsons watching them now.

"Radiation,Weightlessness and Physiological issues" Thank you for mentioning the later, a very underrated problem. Once the TMI engine ignites the reality of PONR, Point Of No Return, will become reality and possibly panic in one or more crew members certainly sometime during the 10 month coast to Mars. I'm waiting for the government and private industry to give up on man to mars and focus on the moon for now until a propulsion breakthrough happens lowering transit time to Mars to weeks vs months.

Had a now-deceased colleague at Westinghouse who worked on NERVA as a young engineer. One problem he said was that in the event of a rocket explosion in the atmosphere, the radioactive fuel would not disperse but land in concentrated highly radioactive chunks. According to him, if it had burned up in the atmosphere, the resulting fine particles would have been at safe concentration. But because the speed of entry would create an air film layer insulating the fuel, and despite the fuel creating its own heat, the aerodynamic radioactive elements would not break apart into a fine powder they had hoped for.

One of my professors (my degree is in Nuclear Engineering) in college worked on the Kiwi and NERVA. He had a number of interesting stories about them. One of the things they did, not covered here, was do a destruction test where they let engine go without control. It was so powerful that it shock itself apart. He mentioned that they watched as the engine started shooting fuel rods out the nozzle as the engine sell destructed from the sheer amount of power and thrust it was putting out.

Getting to Mars in 45 days sounds great! It is my understanding that when the people land, it will be 18 months before the planets align correctly for a return trip. I am starting to think that the ship will need a gravity chamber and the astronauts should sleep in them and spend as much time in them as possible to prevent eye damage and circulation damage. Of course, the ship is also going to need as much radiation protection as possible. I also think if the journey does ever happen, they will need to send food. fuel, and supplies first that can anchor into the soil so they won't blow away during the wind storms. Then they have to try to land close to the supplies. I think the trip to Mars will take years of calculations and planning. The astronauts should be in top physical and mental condition as damage to their bodies from space travel is to be expected.

Great summary :) It's inspiring to finally have a number of serious players focusing on a manned mars mission. Here's hoping we see boots on mars within this decade!

3:11 That is a brilliant explanation of specific impulse. "How long in seconds one pound of propellant can deliver one pound of thrust." I've known about specific impulse for ages, but not really understood it before. Cheers.

That short sleeve shirt is lit AF. Good educational video 👏

Always enjoy and learn from your videos. Would love to see a follow-up video to this that references how realistic the "Pathfinder" shuttle using a Nerva engine from the show "For All Mankind" is.

The background music is intoxicating. I love it.

I like the use of Xenon-ion engines which are efficient for spaceships travelling between planets & in other deep space areas.

i love the narators woice its wery calming.

I'm still holding out for Warp Drive. 😁

I would propose using either L1 or L2 Lagrange Point to their fullest potential. Start building a spacedock/station for nuclear powered craft assembly testing and other experiments. 1. That just sounds awesome. 2. I think people would be more at ease knowing all of this would be well outside the Van Allen Belts.

Dear mr. Curious Droid, mr. Korolev's name sounds a bit differently: there is a little confusioun about letter "e" there. We have two letters for different sounds: actual "E", wich sounds like in Chelomey, or Chernobyl; and letter "ё', or E with double dot above, wich sounds like "yo" in "Yorkshire". This confusion is because it's like everybody knows here, in Russia, wich letter is where, it's obvious for us, but not for foreigners. So, mr. Korolev should sound like "Korolyoff", i guess. Same thing with name "Fedor" (Emelianenko), wich should be "Fyodor". All of this is not important, but, i couldn't resist to mention about names overall and this name in particular. Thank you for great videos and lovely shirts!

We should. Risk from nuclear energy are overblown

For future manned interplanetary mission we will need either a nuclear thermal propulsion like NERVA or a nuclear powered electric propulsion like the VASMIR

If and when, the interest, in exploring the Solar system, reignites . Nuclear powered craft, are the best option. todate.

‘Tesla roaster’

And now I know why the nuclear engine in Kerbal is called the NERV

Your videos are awesome!!! You have a great talent in explaining complicated or long things in an interesting way!

Absolutely one of the best instructors on the internet. Mr. Droid, where do you get all of your knowledge)

With projects like NERVA and MSRE showing such promise over 50 odd years ago, it makes one wonder where society would be now if those and other programs had been allowed to continue. With the amazing efficiency of thermal rockets it's not too difficult to speculate that Mars missions would be something we would be talking about in the past tense in this day and age if NERVA would have continued. From asteroid mining to exploration of the Jovian system moons with a fuel tank refill right from the huge gas giant itself our knowledge of the solar system would be much further along today. As far as here traterrestrially, nuclear power could easily solve all of the world's energy needs and when I think of all the various technological advances that came about from the use of PWR, I wonder where society would be without the anti nuke stance that exists. The MSRE showed such amazing promise from the thorium breeder reactor cycle consuming nuclear waste and reducing storage times from tens of thousands of years to a few hundred to powering the world from essentially limitless supply of beach sand. Today we could be living in a different world with safe, essentially free electricity for everyone and all of the ramifications that go along with small modular emission free megawatt electrical power for developing countries. From limitless power production, electric vehicles, desalination for safe clean drinking water for everyone, to medical advancement with nuclear medicines. Affordable energy is proven to be the great key to end poverty and vastly improved people's lives. The space programs of the 60s and 70s and nuclear power were the fertile technological land our society of today was grown in and the positive reproductions we all benefit from everyday

I think they should use chemical rockets to bring up parts to a moon based factory, and build the nuclear powered rockets for Mars there. Launching a light weight rocket from there would be easier, and safer.

I love this guy's shirts. He should have an online store.

What I want to say is that this is the first time in my life that I have been asked if I wanted to use nuclear anything.... wish I’d been asked before.....

Lmao so that's why it's called the NERV rocket in KSP

This channel is brilliant! I hope you reach 1 million subscribers soon.

The Nerva Xe tested at 2x the impulse of a Saturn5 F1 engine, and was man rated in 1965 and was projected to put a man on Mars by 1978. And was shelved because of strong opposition by particular groups. Not it’s failure to perform. It was also tested atfull thrust for 1600 seconds then turned off and on again over 26x without a single malfunction.

Thank you for presenting such interesting scientific material. This kind of info is not that easy to find and you have put it down in one or two of your programs You are a positive addition to people who are want to learn more about science but who are simply interested amateurs. Keep up the good work, bald guy. We need and appreciate people like you.

What I think of nuclear rocket engines? Whelp ...SOUNDS AWESOME LET'S DO DIS! :)

Can you please put your shirts on the next trip to Mars and beyond? 😉

I finally understand why the NERV from ksp was named that way

Thanks for your videos. They are quite informative

You just got subscribed great idea .

Interesting video and nice shirt as usual! :)

Your videos are fantastic and very informative. But please consider switching to SI units while quantifying things, since it is very difficult to wrap one's head around the archaic FPS units.

Always impressed by the brilliant videos from this channel

I say yes to nuclear powered rockets

I literally woke up on notification to watch this :) #notifSquad

Love the idea and long overdue. The amount of radiation in space is already incredible and by no means would have any effect on anyone other than the crew, and if there voluntarily going then there understanding the risks

I say go for it, something needs to get the ball rolling.

I love me some hot plamsa. Great for getting to Mars and stopping those pesky demons. :D

Nice Video. I hope I get selected as a flight surgeon astronaut for the upcoming Mars Mission.

This page is by far the best updated information channel about whats going on in the space Industry right now

I have been listening to like.. 12 of your videos in the background while doing work and other things. I have no idea what youre talking about! haha! but you have a soothing voice and the low background music is nice.

i'm sick of all these good ideas not being used, everyone alive today will be dead before 1% of us are in space and other planets :(

*What shampoo do you use?*

Great video. There should be volunteers who do not plan on coming back...imo. These nuclear Capernicus vehicles could be the cacoon used as the first housing on Mars with the nuclear power to generate their air/heat and electricity needs and from there, they would begin to build a more elaborate structure. As more of these vehicles arrived and interfaced/replaced....there might be a reasonable expectation to begin a return trip home.

I don't have any intellectually delicious comments but I enjoy the wide variety of the space content and the quality of your videos. Very good work and each of your topics keep me interested for the next one.

I think the real problem is the scientific illiteracy of people (especially some NGOs like GreenPeace) they are stopping the advancements of science for their influence on policy. We must first educate people, and then limit the influence of NGOs. As for this solution I think it's a great answer to challenges we face for Mars voyages, I think only a multi government funded project can achieve that, say Russia and the USA (too many members will stall the project).

If nuclear is the best option then it should be used. Scare tactics will make it difficult but drive on to the stars.

XLNT! Fantastic research and dedicated sharing of Knowledge ! Thank you my man from across the pond!

I like this guy and his chan. He obviously spends time researching these verging technologies

What about a nuclear plasma thermo propulsion combo?

Honnestly, I think the "security" issue about nuclear engine is not really the problem. You can just put the heavy, complex engine in LEO, then build another rocket with highly secured nuclear fuel (uranium/plutonium) in something really resistant, then put the nuclear fuel into the reactor in orbit, and just go. If the nuclear carrier "blows", you don't have to "shield" the whole engine, just shield the radioactive material you're sending. There are probably another problems that may come from there, but honnestly I don't think "security" is such an issue. The main problem, as always in humanity history is about fundings, and politics. And don't get me on the "public interest in space". Space X proved that to be wrong. Just put whole lots of go pro everywhere and stream it.

If we get vibranium and arc reactor, dreams will come true. 1 question is that arc reactor works in space?

Amazing content mate, keep it going.

Curious Droid > Battle Droid.

I simply do not see how any type of long-term space exploration in the inner or outer solar system is going to work without Nuclear based propulsion of some type (whether directly with Nuclear Thermal or electrically with Energy Reactor based ion drives). However, one thing I do wonder...and this is really an unanswerable question at the moment...is if by the time we really start exploring on a large scale...as opposed to simply sending special purpose missions to Mars and back, etc...if it will be classical Nuclear Fission or Nuclear Fusion. That's unanswerable of course sense we don't know when Fusion will finally pan out, but **if** in the next several years a Fusion breakthrough were made, I think that it could very possibly speed up our development of Space Exploration simply because having an infinite supply of reliable energy in a self-contained package (meaning you could design ships for both the inner solar system where sunshine is plentiful *and* the outer planets where it is not) with fuel readily available in the areas you'll need it most...again speaking of the outer gas giants which are too far away from the sun for Solar Cell based ion propulsion.

Speed/safety concerns seems to make space travel an ideal application for molten salt reactors. You could heat the hydrogen in the heat exchanger, or just power a number of ion thrusters.

Space nuclear propulsion: Everybody goes mad. Thousands of ICBMs that reach space: Oh that’s fine.

Most commenters fears of "nuclear disasters" through various sorts of launch or orbital mishaps are driven by the fear of radioactive debris and its attendant radiation emissions. Most non radiobiologists i.e. most people, have a wildly exaggerated fear of the danger of ionizing radiation. True, in high dose and dose rates, it is dangerous, but in low dose and dose rates the human body is very tolerant of ionizing radiation. In fact in acute doses of up-to 80 mSv it actually has a bio-positive effect by up regulating the human immune system. A fresh nuclear core, as one would find on a rocket about to be launched into space by chemical rocket engines, is only very very slightly radioactive and does not represent a great danger even if it were to be blown to smithereens in a launch accident. Even this eventuality is unlikely given the damage proof packaging that it would be contained in. Sooo many applications of nuclear technology are being held back by uninformed people's irrational fear of low dose ionizing radiation. Terrible shame.

Hey Paul. Great video as always! Regarding the artificial gravity that some plan to resolve by a rotating cylinder, would it be sensible to use a "near to one G" acceleration in the direction of the course. That way you a) keep getting at higher speeds to reach your target and b) you alleviate the weightlessness and the like. Of course this idea is probably way out of line given the need for continuous power and thus "fuel". But I'd like to have your enlightened view on this. Cheers

For serious missions it is a must. But i do belive, the "ship" will look much more like two spacex's Starships connected by teather "facing" each other by bows, connected paralel (body to body) to another 3 "tanker" ships (on both sides a pair with rocket fuel and one with xenon/hydrogen for the long burn engine) and a longburn engine segment - either an ion engine, or nuclear engine connected 90 degrees to the spaceships, optimaly able to turn around the cone of the starship. This design should have a "midway" ring on the teathers, as a connection point to quite big solar power plant and com-dish, able to a degree turn around both axis. That would quite neatly adress the situation with need for simulated gravity enroute, shortening of the interplanetary travel, simplifying the starship itself (because it would be a conglomerate of material necessary to get across, or material ment for Martian landing anyway).