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

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:thats good

[Whitecloud]

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

what about actually getting to Mars?

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