Privatized space flight

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Alright, enough about Russia let's get back to America(since dats where I live ). If the US government were to pursue R&D into Nuclear Propulsion, it would have to be done in the utmost secrecy because of the public outcry that would occur due to paranoia about anything nuclear thanks in big part to the hippies. I think I know a very good location for this: AREA 51.

And no, I am NOT KIDDING! Forget about the UFO/Alien conspiracies; that place would be ideal to conduct actual testing of nuclear engines as well as develop the technology necessary to build them. What is really needed for nuclear propulsion to work and maximize safety is to use Gas Core Reactors rather than the Solid Core reactors used in power plants and on naval vessels.

Should Uncle Sam retain its monopoly on all things nuclear though?

The reactor isnt radioactive if it's not running yet. You could launch the fuel separately on a smaller rocket and load it later in space (robotically). You could also launch it with an escape rocket, like crew, in case of a launch accident. Having an escape rocket puts the chance of loss at 1-1000 or better. Compared to 1-100 for a big rocket like shuttle. The amount of precaution depends on the amount of radioactive material you are launching. We've already risked small RGBs to power spacecraft like Cassini. Larger loads would require more care.

The problem is financial. NASA, the DOD, and private industry all need rockets so an investor has a proven market to pursue. There is no current market for space based reactors so you'd need to spend a lot of money developing one and then hope that NASA would use it. No other customer would need one for the forseeable future. And NASA is not a rational agency. It's driven by a commitee of congressmen who are concerned about local jobs. Even if you made them a good deal they might not be able to understand it or act on it. They may not even care.

That's a lot of money to risk (billions) for the hope of selling to a single, slightly deranged customer.

Yes, I said there was a market for launching rockets. The US now has several private launch companies.

But there is no market for space based reactors today. You'd have to hope that NASA (or DOD) would buy them.

Actually, the discussion of lifting reactors to orbit was in the context of NERVA engines; fear of "nukes" is what keeps them from being used for SSTO (Single Stage To Orbit) craft, as the exhaust would be clean steam. (You would never want to vent the fluid inside the reactor - that's what keeps the reaction under control!)

The fuel for a reactor is indeed radioactive; that's why there were protestors outside the Kennedy Space Center when the Cassini mission was launched, and more panic a year later when it used Earth to slingshot toward Saturn. Out past Jupiter, there isn't enough solar power to run the systems on the Cassini probe, so it was equipped with a simple reactor fueled by a few kilos of plutonium. Had the rocket exploded on the pad, the vessel containing the plutonium would probably have been the only thing to survive intact - but to hear the protestors carrying on, you'd have thought the rocket were fueled with human blood, and the slingshot would summon the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse to begin the End Times.

And that's why we can't have NERVA craft, and why we probably won't even be able to field large-scale VASIMR thrusters until we can mine radioactives from asteroids or the Moon. Because, as Agent K observed, a person is smart, but people are dumb, ignorant, panicky animals, and you know it.