I've thought that if this idea is picked up it would have to be in space. Testing the rocket on the surface of the moon (point the plate straight up) would probably have been necessary anyway. Ordinary chemical rockets can be tested on the Earth's surface, this concept, not so much.
This is among the reason I've thought nuclear waste should be disposed of in space. Send the stuff onto the moon; if future lunar inhabitants want to mine it for plutonium in the naturally radiation-soaked landscape that is the lunar surface, let them.
> This is among the reason I've thought nuclear waste should be disposed of in space. Send the stuff onto the moon
Congrats; you have come up with a way to make nuclear waste disposal 100x more dangerous and 1000x more expensive!
You need to think more clearly about this.
Reprocessing is very expensive; $1000/kg and up. Launch to space will likely become much cheaper than this as fully reusable launch vehicles become available. Even if the spent fuel must be armored against accident the cost of launching it to LEO, and then to the moon, is likely to become much cheaper than the cost of reprocessing it here on Earth.
Space disposal has the positive advantage that the seven very long lived fission products are removed from the biosphere, along with the very long lived actinides like Np-237.
And set the stage for "Space 1999"'s lunar escape from earth.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_1999
Nice set design, but honestly unwatchable. An accidental testament to the genius of ST:TOS.