Jun 23 1975
From The Space Library
NASA and the Energy Research and Development Administration signed an interagency cooperative agreement to enhance the national energy effort. ERDA and NASA management would identify specific program tasks that could be undertaken by NASA centers in support of ERDA programs. ERDA would use NASA's basic and applied research capabilities in areas including solar heating and cooling systems, gas turbines, fuel cells, hydrogen technology, ground-propulsion technology, bearings, seals, combustion, automatic control systems, and materials and structures technology.
NASA would submit proposals and plans to ERDA for specific technology developments including testing, evaluation, and demonstration of projects or hardware; ERDA would also call upon NASA for specific short- and long-term technical and administrative expertise such as technical review boards, evaluation groups, and other assessment techniques.
The agreement would establish an ERDA-NASA program committee to annually review NASA research and development work in support of ERDA. (NASA Release 75-182; ERDA Release 75-99)
NASA was conducting design studies and component testing for an experimental laser-energy system using a nuclear-fission reactor fueled with gaseous uranium or a gaseous uranium compound such as hexafluoride, Dr. Karl Thom said in an article released by NASA. Whereas conventional laser power used various processes of energy conversion that required costly equipment and resulted in net loss of energy, a nuclear system could produce large amounts of high-grade power very cheaply and efficiently.
Some scientists were using various nuclear-powered lasers for experiments, but most used systems that transferred energy from external reactors to the laser gas within the laser tube. NASA, with its interest in gaseous fuel reactors as high-performance space power and propulsion systems, was looking at a more efficient system in which the fission fragments that energize laser gas were energized within the laser tube itself creating, at fission, a powerful chain reaction.
Dr. Thom said that, in combination with the research on nuclear pumped lasers, Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory scientists were testing gaseous fuel reactors using components, reflectors, and controls salvaged from the nuclear rocket program. If the system proved practical "a new era of nuclear energy utilization will begin, in space and on Earth." Space engineers could create a nuclear-powered laser station in earth orbit to beam power via lasers to various customers in space, to other space probes for propulsion, to lunar bases for their power needs, and to earth for clean and abundant energy. (NASA Release 75-169)
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