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.
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