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Lockheed Martin to Build Nuclear Powered Spacecraft
LouisvilleDebugger writes "The BBC reports that Lockheed Martin have received a $6M contract to develop the nuclear powered
JIMO, or Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter. (According to the NASA project site, the first probes would not launch before 2011 due to development lead time.) On arrival at Jupiter, the extra power allows the probe to orbit each of three of the Galilean moons (Ganymede, Callisto, and most challenging from a radiation exposure standpoint, Europa) in turn, presumably helping to establish the possibility of liquid water and hence, life within the Jovian system. JIMO is a sub-project of Project Prometheus, initiated by NASA this year for the purpose of demonstrating that nuclear powered and propelled spacecraft may be safely designed and tested."
Its nice to see Lockheed Martin has other businesses than building weapons of massdestruction for the US government.
...nuclear-powered space ships should have started launching 10 years ago. So, if Roddenberry's predications continue to be off by 10 years, we should have the eugenics wars soon.
Khan!!!!!!
Why do I h8 apple?
Oh oh, aren't we suppost to leave Europa alone after 2010? The Monolith is going to be pissed!
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
On arrival at Jupiter, the extra power allows the probe to orbit each of three of the Galilean moons (Ganymede, Callisto, and most challenging from a radiation exposure standpoint, Europa) in turn, presumably helping to establish the possibility of liquid water and hence, life within the Jovian system.
The probe will then dump its nuclear waste onto these moons, thereby killing that life.
Inverse square wave is a mother, ain't it?
meh.
...a small, strangely coffee-grinder-like device labeled "Mr. Fusion."
The coolest voice ever.
What if the launch goes wrong quite late and the nuclear reactor hits, for example, North-Korea.. That would be quite stressing for diplomats, no?
"It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful." - Anton LaVey
The shape of this spacecraft reminds me a bit of another Jupiter mission.
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
Hey now, I live in Hampton Roads, VA pretty close to Northropt Grumman/Newport News Shipbuilding where they build nuclear subs and carriers. You don't see me scratching my third head and worrying about one of the boats sinking do you?
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But didn't the Chinese expedition that landed on Europa get destroyed by some "thing" that came out of the ice and was attracted to their landers lights?
Best we be a takin a shotgun or somethin wit us.
"Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it." - John Lennon.
Both the airforce and the army tried building reactors (so far the marines are the only branch that haven't). The airforce one IIRC didn't get past the design phase for a few reasons: They couldn't provide enough shielding w/o excessive weight, and they couldn't ensure that if the plane were shot down there wouldn't be a massive amouunt of contamination. Be that as it may, those reactors were meant to fly huge bombers 24/7 arounnd the Soviet Union...they become moot with the advent of ICBMs.
Now the army reactor....it was a spectacular failure (ie, it failed spectacularly). One poor guy got pinned to the roof by a control rod! (They had been doing some repairs, and some genius decided to raise a control rod...startup rate went ballistic, water (I believe it was a water reactor) flashed to steam, and other very very bad things. When I was going through power school, it used to be the running joke as to why the army shouldn't run reactors. Anyway, their reactors were intended to power a forward deployed base. They'd just fly in the parts and flip the switch.
SL-1 (army) link: http://www.radiationworks.com/sl1reactor.htm
The reason these reactors are feasible for space i due to the fact that...it's space. There won't be any people around, so you only need to shield the instruments. Between that and the small size of the reactor (in terms of power), very little shielding is required.
--Jubedgy
Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis hebes
every day that goes by either..
-aliens invade and destroy all of humanity
-or they dont
50/50 chance, you never know
bite my glorious golden ass.