007 SadHeart Redesign-Aft

It was at this point I discovered Atomic Rockets, a treasure trove of Space Travel lore and considerations, with a pro-science anti-technobabble bent. After reading some of that I redesigned the ship so that most of it was "possible", or at least based on real space flight science.

The top image is a side view of the Sadheart showing the zones safe from radiation from the nuclear reactor/engine. Zone 1 is only safe in a radiation suit while the reactor is at full output or the engine's on. The engineering section is set just outside of that zone. The heat sinks are needed to dissipate heat and are set to 90° to each other (to avoid reflecting heat back on to the ship. They are probably too small for the craft, but could easily be expanded to go up to the engineering section.

Being an engineer/technician on the ship would be a mixed experience. The main thing would be not forgetting safety procedure and getting yourself killed by doing something stupid. Manoeuvring such a ship would also require a certain degree of skill, care, and attention to detail. The ship would need to be docked from the bow, otherwise you're shoving radiation into the space port's facilities. It's possible thought to dock/reverse out without using nuclear means. All reasons why this is a deep space craft!

The bottom image shows the individual components. What's still missing is extra containers of fuel, gas, and water but these are to be added later. Notice the different style of heat-sink. I would think that avoiding being fried by the heat-sinks would be just as much an issue as avoiding radiation poisoning.