Thursday Things: Tablets and Reactors Edition
25 July 2024. Vol 6 No 30. By Dan McGirt. #259
It’s Thursday Things! This week we shop with the ancients and fly the nuclear way.
“I have nothing to do with the content of this issue. But I made you look.” Photo by Fábio Alves on Unsplash
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Spaceship go boom
To get anywhere in space in a reasonable amount of time, you need a massive power source.
Rocket fuel, right?
Nah. Rockets are kiddie pool stuff.
If you really want to get somewhere, you’ve got to go nuclear.
We’re building nuclear spaceships again—this time for real
Finally!
The idea isn’t new. It’s been around for decades:
Phoebus 2A, the most powerful space nuclear reactor ever made, was fired up at Nevada Test Site on June 26, 1968. The test lasted 750 seconds and confirmed it could carry first humans to Mars. But Phoebus 2A did not take anyone to Mars. It was too large, it cost too much, and it didn’t mesh with Nixon’s idea that we had no business going anywhere further than low-Earth orbit.
Nixon wimped out.
But the nuclear space dream never died:
It took over 40 years before NASA brought up nuclear propulsion again, first in the short-lived Jupiter Icy Moon Orbiter project and then in the design reference architecture for human exploration of Mars. Powering the latter missions with a compact reactor could cut down Mars transit by more than half, to three to four months versus the six to nine months predicted for chemical rocket engines. Less time in space meant less exposure to radiation for the astronauts and fewer supplies for the trip.
But how to pay for all this?
Enter DARPA:
And then on June 17, 2020, DARPA entered the chat and said, “We want a nuclear rocket.” Not just another paper study—a demonstrator.
DARPA has cash. Lots of cash. And so began The DRACO Project.
And the apparent concern regarding hypothetical threats has continued. The purpose of the Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations (DRACO) project, stated in its environmental assessment, was to “provide space-based assets to deter strategic attacks by adversaries.” Dickinson’s worries about China were quoted in there as well.
DRACO is such a badass name for a nuclear spaceship. And I’m not even making it up.
“Let’s say you have a time-critical mission where you need to quickly go from A to B in cislunar space or you need to keep an eye on another country that is doing something near or around the Moon, and you need to move in very fast. With a platform like DRACO, you can do that,” said DARPA’s Dodson.
And isn’t getting from A to B fast what it’s all about?
What will DRACO look like?
DRACO will be a medium-sized spacecraft, under 15 meters long with a diameter below 5.4 meters—dimensions dictated by the size of the standard payload fairing of the Vulcan Centaur rocket on which it will probably be launched. “We are familiar with liquid hydrogen, spacecraft systems engineering, and integration. We have the right skillset and the right people to build this thing,” said Shireman.
Okay, there are some tricky technical and design details to be worked out, sure. But the important point is that engineers are actually working on those problems instead of just daydreaming about it.
Let’s do this thing!
(It’s a lengthy, detailed article, so go read it all if the future of spaceships is your thing.)
Shopping for the ages
There’s a great scene in Raider of the Lost Ark where Indy’s nemesis Belloq talks about how a worthless watch buried in the sand for a thousand years would become priceless.
This also applies to your shopping list.
Archaeologists Unearth and Decipher Ancient Tablet Bearing a Shopping List
Archaeologists have unearthed an ancient tablet with an early form of writing that preserves a furniture shopping list from around 3,500 years ago.
The tablet was uncovered during excavations at the archaeological site of Alalakh in what is now the Hatay Province of Turkey, the country's Ministry of Culture and Tourism said in a statement.
Imagine that you live your whole life, striving and overcoming challenges, enduring setbacks and sorrows, working to leave a legacy behind, something to be remembered by, and it turns out that the one thing about you that will endure for the ages is that one day you went furniture shopping.
The tablet found in the archaeological site of Alalakh is an example of Akkadian cuneiform. Akkadian is an extinct Semitic language that was widely spoken in the ancient Near East from the 3rd millennium B.C. until it began to be replaced by Aramaic from around the 8th century B.C. Akkadian is the earliest known Semitic language.
According to Mehmet Nuri Ersoy, Turkey's Minister of Culture and Tourism, on X:
According to first readings, B.C. The Akkadian cuneiform tablet, dating back to the 15th century, contains records of large amounts of furniture purchases. We believe that this tablet, weighing 28 grams, will offer a new perspective to understand the economic structure and state system of the Late Bronze Age.
You know, it’s better than being remembered by the graffiti you left behind in Pompei before the volcano went off. I hope the ancient Amorite shopper enjoyed that Bronze Age furniture from Akkadian IKEA!
Bronze Age shopping list Image: Republic Of Turkey Ministry Of Culture And Tourism via Newsweek
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