To the End of the Solar System; The Story of the Nuclear Rocket

Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky, 2004. First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. xxi, [1], 438, [4] pages. Maps. Illustrations. Appendices. Essay on Sources. Notes. Index. DJ has some edge wear. Name and phone number of previous owner in ink on fep. Foreword by Congressman Ken Hechler. Foreword by Keith Boyer, Frank Durham, Walter Esselman, Harold B. Finger, Stanley Gunn, Milton Klein, and James T. Ramey. James A. Dewar worked exclusively on nuclear policy issues in the Atomic Energy Commission and its successor agencies, the Energy Research and Development Administration and the Department of Energy. Such work included nonproliferation and export control, nuclear testing and verification, international, environmental, nuclear fuel cycle, intelligence and technology transfer from the nuclear weapons complex. He held a Q clearance, with Sigma access, as well as many intelligence clearances. He graduated from Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois in 1966 with a BA, the University of Wisconsin in Madison, Wisconsin in 1968 with a MA and Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas in 1974 with the Ph.D. He began his government career and interest in nuclear rocketry in 1969 as a summer intern in NASA. Chemically propelled rockets can lift less than 5 percent of their take-off weight into orbit, a fact that could forever limit the space program. Nuclear-powered rockets, however, with their superior thrusting power and speed, are radically different. So argues James A. Dewar in the only comprehensive history ever written of the nuclear rocket project. It is a story of political battles over the space program's future, involving Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon, and a readable account of its technical successes, a story perhaps more interesting and certainly more important, Dewar believes, than the history of atomic and H-bomb development. Dewar maintains that only by reestablishing a nuclear rocket project can the nation have a space program worthy of the 21st century, one that makes reality of the hopes and dreams of science fiction. Condition: Very good / Good.

Keywords: Atomic Energy Commission, Clinton Anderson, Rocket Engine, Hugh Dryden, Harry Finger, Chet Holifield, KIWI-B, Los Alamos, NASA, NERVA, Project Rover, Project Orion, Project Phoebus, Space Nuclear Propulsion, James Webb, Jerome Wiesner

ISBN: 0813122678

[Book #84002]

Price: $250.00

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