Join us to welcome Jim Cavera as he presents: “Future Propulsion: Nuclear Fission, Fusion, and Beyond”. Nuclear propulsion promises performance many orders of magnitude better than chemical propulsion. Chemical propulsion can give us the moon, but nuclear propulsion can give us the solar system and even the stars. In this talk, the theoretical underpinnings of nuclear propulsion, the historical experiments, and the prospects for the future will be discussed. Jim Cavera is a senior engineer with Blue Origin. He has undergraduate degrees in optical engineering and physics, and his graduate work was in nuclear engineering and aerospace engineering, during which he explored the use of dense plasma focus devices for interstellar travel. He has served for many years on AIAA's Nuclear and Future Flight Technical Committee and is currently its vice chair.
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