Russia Plans Martian Nuclear Station

An anonymous reader writes "The BBC reports that Russian scientists have announced plans to build a nuclear power station on Mars. They say that all the necessary technical drawings have now been completed, and all will be ready for the construction work to begin. The power plant should be up and running by 2030."

Comments

It is true!

[TheBeardIsRed]

...And so it was fortold by prophet Kim Stanley Robinson. Too bad the date was a little off.

I hope this turns into a space race

[sahonen]

...That way, at least SOMEONE will set foot on Mars in my lifetime. I mean, jeez, Arthur C. Clarke thought we'd be to Saturn by now, and we probably would be if we'd kept up what we were doing in the 60's.

Re:I hope this turns into a space race

[uberdave]

As much as I love the whole space travel thing, it is a dead end. It will not solve the overcrowding, or pollution issues, and I doubt it will ever be economically feasible to get natural resources from space.

Sure, we could go to Mars. But what will it get you? Mars is a dead planet. There may be enough resources to run a colony. Fine, you have a million or so people living in a dome, breathing recycled air, drinking recycled water, and eating hydroponically grown soyburgers. That's just a drop in the population bucket. And if that's the way you're going to live, why go all the way to Mars to do it? Why not just build your dome here on Earth?

Face it, we are trapped in our own solar system. Pioneer 10 has been travelling for thirty years, and is less than 0.03% of the way to the closest star. It should arrive in a little over 9000 years from now. The only two technologies that can get us away, are hibernation, and multi-generation craft. Are we going to put a couple of hundred people onto one of these spaceships and wait around for 9-10 thousand years to see if they find a habitable planet? No, we're stuck here.

So, we've got the Moon, Mars, maybe Mercury and a couple of the other moons to play with. All of them, lifeless hunks of rock, dull and boring. Maybe if SETI found something, maybe it would be worthwhile. But as it stands, what's the point?

No, I think our future lies not in space, but in the other frontier: the oceans. Abundant resources, plenty of space, and not nearly as expensive to get to with enough equipment to do something worthwhile. I mean, it will take 30 years to get a nuclear power plant to Mars. We could put an entire nuclear powered research plant on the floor of the Atlantic within five months (convert a submarine).

...or maybe I'm watching too much "Stingray", and not enough "Star Trek".

Re:I hope this turns into a space race

[Selanit]

As much as I love the whole colonization of America thing, it is a dead end. It will not solve the overcrowding of England , or pollution issues, and I doubt it will ever be economically feasible to get natural resources from America .

Sure, we could go to America . But what will it get you? America is an empty wilderness . There may be enough resources to run a colony. Fine, you have a thousand or so people living in a palisade , breathing foul swamp air, drinking putrid water, and eating hardscrabble . That's just a drop in the population bucket. And if that's the way you're going to live, why go all the way to America to do it? Why not just build your palisade here in England ?

Just thought I'd insert a little historical perspective, here. These opinions are not new. Nor are they especially important, since colonization efforts generally aren't governed by entirely rational impulses. Look at the United States. Maryland was founded by Lord Baltimore as an experiment in utopian feudalism. Massachusetts was founded by people looking to worship Jesus however they pleased. Virginia was established by a private company whose sole interest was in turning a profit. Not one of 'em worked out as planned -- Maryland is not a feudal state and never really was; Massachusetts discovered that religious freedom and strict orthodoxy don't go well together (see: formation of Connecticut); and the Virginia Company went bust. All three of those (and arguably the other colonies as well, each in their own ways) were founded by slightly bonkers people whose grand plans went poof on contact with reality. And in all those cases there were plenty of people back home in England saying "What, are you nuts? The East Indies are the future!"

That said, I would be greatly surprised if we established a colony on Mars without first putting together a few near-Earth projects, first. Colonists setting out for America had a long history of seafaring experience to rely on to get them there, and could look forward to practicing agriculture on their arrival. We have very little experience in long-distance space journeys, and even less in domed living. Personally, I think we're much more likely to establish a moon-base first. We've already visited it a few times. It's closer, so if something goes hideously wrong help can show up in days or weeks rather than months. And it's even less hospitable than Mars, so we'll get some good experience.

Power, but...

[bersl2]

There'll be a power station but still no manned missions by then.

Ah, pessimism...

A bit premature?

[Daetrin]

Maybe i'm missing something here, but this nuclear station will "only" need six engineers to run it, and is proposed for use by other cosmonauts in future mars expeditions.

So it needs people on Mars to run it, and people on Mars to take advantage of it. Do they actually have any firm plans for getting people to Mars?

I suppose maybe since it's so much easier to get hardward to Mars that maybe they'll send the nuclear power plant there and then use that to justify research into getting people over there. "After all, we've already got the equipment there for them to use, and it will be a waste if we don't send anyone."

Re:thats good

[Whitecloud]

What about the small problem of finding 6 people to go to Mars....

what about actually getting to Mars?

Interesting if anything

[Clinoti]

Perhaps the plausibility(laughability) of this project and the scale it will take might force some of the others countries with ambitious space ideas to start actively planning and persuing those ideas; at the benefit of the current space projects. If anything I think this idea seems more like a thought gambit, akin to "Well, here's what we've put on the table, how about you?" than an actual bid to get people or supplies onto Mars.

Uranium on a rocket?

[t0qer]

The enviromentalist always have a field day protesting whenever a sattelite goes up with a nuclear battery, unless the russians plan on mining uranium in space (unlikely)

Just imagine if something went wrong like chernobyl. Except this time it's 30 miles in the air where it can travel around the globe quite nicely.

Don't get me wrong, i'm all for space exploration, but the first hurdle Russia will have to overcome is a social one, not technilogical.

Good Idea

[Mark_MF-WN]

Although I don't know whether the Russians can actually pull this off, it does demonstrate a very good idea.

Send the equipment ahead.

When the US sends a manned probe (unfortunately, it's highly unlikely that anyone else can do it, let alone do it first; only the US has the resources, finances, and expertise available to perform these feats of super-engineering), how much easier will the mission be if most of their cargo is already there ahead of them? Everything they'd need to build a base station and perform experiments would be ready and waiting, greatly simplifying the task of getting the astronauts there in the first place.

It's almost certainly a lot easier to get astronauts to Mars than it is to get astronauts and 100 tonnes of non-spaceflight equipment to Mars.

And why do they want to do this?

[chia_monkey]

I find it intriguing and interesting, even a bit exciting that they not only want to go to Mars, but that they want to build a base and a nuclear plant up there to power it. But the article (I know, I'm one of those weird people that actually reads the articles every now and then) was severely lacking in info. WHY do they want to go? For the mere "race" aspect? For research? In the article itself it states "the Red Planet is extremely inhospitable" and then also says how they want a permanent station there. That is a LOT of time, money, and resources for something trivial...yet they don't even mention what their main reason for all this is. Hmmm...anyone have any insights? Everyone excited and ready to see what this will be about in our lifetime?

Re:And why do they want to do this?

[picardsb]

Life has been found on Mars - (correction) 'past evidence of highly intelligent life has been found on Mars'. Unbelievable technologies and resources - NASA, ESA, and Russian Space Agencies are all quiet about this - to general public. That's why there's 5 ships enroute to Mars right now, and more are following. Finally manned missions and bases are needed to discover everything. Wake up and look behind the curtains! (there's no harm putting forward theories - we can all discuss it in a warm and friendly atmosphere)

Re: SHIT.

[FooAtWFU]

OK. Here goes...

Mmm. the Russians are doing this project? Say hello to Chernobyl Mars!

Re:Genious!

[Anonymous Coward]

What's funny is Russia is far poorer than the US and spends far less on education, yet still has a higher literacy rate. Russian: 99.6% literate. US: 97% literate.

Re:You know

[whatch durrin]

While I agree that generally speaking, standards are important, they don't apply so much in this case.

Your example of international shipping involves cargo being traded back and forth between countries, thereby necessitating standard shipping practices.

With space travel, however, you're mostly looking at each country doing this independently. The only example to support your case would be the ISS, where both US and Russian shuttles had to dock. They didn't have to design their entire craft to a set of common standards, though, just the interface from their respective shuttles to the ISS.

Unless we're very, very close to doing joint missions with other countries, I think the standardization issue is actually a non-issue. In fact, it would probably benefit technology and discovery more at this point to avoid standards between nations. Darwin's theories will go to work on a much grander (albeit unintended by Darwin) scale, weeding out the inferior designs and ideas, whether by minor failure or full-out destruction.

Good, I hope they do!

[zx75]

I hope Russia does put together a concerted effort to reach Mars and establish a human presence there. Their space program may be poor and mothballed by the government, but that isn't going to stop them from dreaming and trying to achieve those dreams.

This is the sort of thing that we need to give NASA a swift kick in the butt. The self proclaimed richest nation in the world can't be bothered to spend money to futher scientific ambition like this, and would rather spend all their resources defending themselves against an enemy that does exist, and it takes a dirt poor, ex-superpower to do anything about it.

Sorry guys, but it looks to me like you're still trying to fight the old fight, and haven't quite realized yet that the world has passed you bye.

The power station IS the rocket.

[mattr]

Surprised nobody has commented in this, how convenient for people to be fighting about how many rads per year you get at the surface of Mars.

It seems extremely conservative to me that Russia would take 30 years to get to Mars, especially considering their stated plan is to build a reactor - they'll get to Mars faster if the reactor is in fact what gets them to Mars in the first place.

The U.S. has had a working nuclear rocket engine for forty years, according to a PDF on the ROVER/Nerva project off this page. These are relatively simple engines which shoot hydrogen out the back.

Of course the reference to "already built" is bizarre, who cares if it is already built if they are going to take 30 years to do it? No reason to mention that unless maybe they are talking about tested submarine reactors.

Of course the U.S. has a deal according to this March 2003 article to get Russian nuclear rocket fuels for the nuclear rocket program of Project Prometheus through 2009.

This pdf says that using the NERVA rockets of the 1970s we could get to the moon in a day, or to Mars in 4 months. The article by a Los Alamos researcher is interesting as it talks about the social problems versus technical problems. In all it seems that the nuclear rocket costs half as much, is twice as powerful, and is safe (at least from this paper it seems that reactor core products stay in the reactor). Also from about page 21 there is an interesting section on radiation and human exploration.

It talks about using a gas core nuclear rocket (GCNR) in which we are talking about how to shield crew from radiation in flight, not on the ground, but that this will mean we can get to and from Mars in much less than NASA's planned (1998) mission of 3 years. With a specific impulse of over 3000 seconds, a GCNR ship can have a 3 month transit to Mars, 2 months on the planet, and 4 months back - thus reducing psychological stress factors by keeping the mission to 6-7 months' duration.

There is also the physical deterioration from a long flight.. Apparently the current U.S.-Russia program is aiming for even better, perhaps 2 months each way using small reactors for an unlimited fuel supply and three times better propulsion.

More info:
link
link
link
pro-nuclear space space group with more information

University of Maryland's reactor

[gatkinso]

UMD runs a 250 kW reactor that runs on (what is today considered) nuclear waste.

Very clean, IMPOSSIBLE to produce weapons grade material from it or its fuel, and provides a solution (actually a use) for today's nuclear waste.

http://www.caesar.umd.edu/