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NASA Developing Nuclear Reactor For Moon and Mars
Al writes "NASA recently finished testing a miniature nuclear reactor that would provide power for an astronaut base on the Moon or Mars. The reactor combines a small fission system with a Stirling engine to make a 'safe, reliable, and efficient' way to produce electricity. The system being tested at NASA's Glenn Research Center can produce 2.3 kilowatts and could be ready for launch by 2020, NASA officials say. The reactor ought to provide much more power than solar panels but could prove controversial with the public concerned about launching a nuclear power source and placing it on the Moon or another planet."
Then they can give the reactor to me and I can finally send the power company a photocopy of my ass; I don't even have to worry about disposal! I hear there are plenty of countries like Iran and North Korea looking for nuclear refuse.
Nuclear power is actually one of the safest, cleanest, and most reliable forms of power ever invented. So long as no meteroites hit it, we should be fine. Huh. Wonder what caused all those craters on the moon.....
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The uranium that goes into a reactor isn't all that radioactive - it's the spent fuel that comes out that's the problem. If a rocket carrying this thing explodes on take off it isn't going to be Chernobyl. In fact, it sounds a good deal safer than all those Pu-238 RTGs that have been sent up there.
It shouldn't be more controversial than the reactors that powered Voyager and other deep space probes. There have been protests over some of the more potentially dangerous reactors that might have caused contamination over a wide area if they blew up; but IIRC they launched anyway.
A reactor that small shouldn't require a huge ammount of fissile material. I bet it could blow up in the atmosphere and produce less radiation than we get from a day of coal fired power in the Eastern US. Coal is full of trace radioactive elements, and it adds up when you burn as much as we do.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
It's a Stirling Engine....not Sterling.
An engine made out of silver? Or just a generally excellent one? Ah, a Stirling engine.
More quality editing from Slashdot...
Yeah, until the fuel runs out. I'm pretty sure that with solar panels, the sun never runs out.
I'm 100% sure you are wrong.
0 = 1 + e^(Alt something)
Why not re-open research into nuclear thermal rockets? They were able to get them up to 40% efficiency back in 1972, I'm would hope we can do better than that now. Use the reactor to heat a propellant to get you to the moon, then use the reactor on the moon to power the base. If it's time to head home, you only need to ship a relatively stable propellant up, rather than actual rocket fuel.
Yeah we can't have dangerous, dangerous radiation in space. Think of the children.
When I first saw this, I thought it was for powering VASIMR plasma engines.
Recently, AW&ST had an article suggesting that transit times between Mars and Earth 30 days could be possible using a continuously running VASIMR engine (it has an insanely high specific impulse). BUT, it would require a nuclear power source because the amount of solar panels (especially outside of earth's orbit) woudl be impractical.
myke
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
1. Ignorance.
2. The Internet
There is a whole lot of people who can now be offended at things they would never have heard of before or hand reason to be offended of. Never under estimate the ability of humans to make ignorance even more prevalent. What many thought would free us from ignorance only seemed to exaggerate it more.
I guess there is another option, it never ceases to amaze me how many people can find offense in anything. I think they have a need to be noticed or to find a way to blame others for any condition they are in.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
This is the most intelligent comment on this thread so far, why it is posted as AC I cannot imagine. It reminds me of a brilliant comment on the assembly of nuclear fuel rods: that they are so nonradioactive that they can be assembled by hand. The operators wear gloves, not to protect them from the fuel, but to protect the fuel from their fingers.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Read the article. 2.3 kW is the test version, they want to scale it up to 40 kW for the base:
The recent tests examined technologies that would see a nuclear reactor coupled with a Stirling engine capable of producing 40 kilowatts of energy--enough to power a future lunar or Mars outpost.
40 kW is approximately 17 outlets that can handle 20 A at 115 V. Yeah, it's still not a ton but it's a start and you could potentially put up several of these reactors as you expand the facility. This would also add fault-tolerance to the entire system.
Sapere aude!
The real danger to the west is the overwhelming number of complete fucking idiots it breeds that demand that all technological progress is halted "for teh children!1".
They're a danger to the rest of the world too.
Wake me when I can buy me a Ford Nucleon. 5000 miles on a single fueling. Take that, Tesla Motors!
http://twitter.com/OLDTELEGRAM
When your talking about space, spending a fortune on exotic, super lightweight materials will save you many times more than that cost in launches. Weight is the main factor in the number of things that can go up in a rocket. I think I remember hearing someone mention in the ballpark of $25,000 per pound. So while you look at Cheap as the total cost, they look at it a bit differently.
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
...unless you're ok with only breathing during the day...
I don't know about you, but I SLEEP during the night. Sheesh, this isn't rocket surgery.
-- i am jack's amusing sig file
Actually, Moon dust is a bigger problem on the than Mars dust exactly because there is no weather. Weathering wears down the rough edges of dust particles. Without it, the dust retains jagged edges. It is extremely abrasive, sticks to everything, and is electrically charged. Once it sticks to something, it is extremely difficult to get off. On Mars, however, you can just wipe the dust away. It's weathered and smooth, like the dust we are all familiar with on Earth.
http://www.wired.com/science/space/news/2005/04/67110
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080924191552.htm
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/090421-st-moon-dust-sunangle.html
metric ass-load = about .85 of a fuck-ton.
"which is ot that hard"
Okay, how?
Batteries are heavy and you have to lift them from Earth. Regolith has a pretty low specific heat capacity. Water works pretty well to store heat, or to make hydrogen, but on the moon you're probably not going to have much and you might want to drink it instead. You can compress gas to store energy, but where are you going to find that on the moon?
Capital letters were an invention of Satan after he was thrown off the Anunaki space ship. He gave the first capital letter he invented, the letter L, to the Australian Aborigines who used it to hunt animals and wage war with each other. It is no coincidence that Viking battle axes are in the shape of the letter T and the Nazi Swastika uses 4 L's. I realized this while watching Sesame Street and having a nice glass of distilled water and pure grain alcohol. All those capital letters are shown by - wait for it - Monsters! It's all so very clear to me now! We must now take our capital letter to the moon so we can make an end of them and the moon-dwelling Nazis for all time!
Similar to the upcoming US election results
Since there is specifically zero atmosphere, the only dust you're going to get on the rover is something directly applying it via ballistic trajectory. That's pretty easy to prevent with simply placement slightly away from drive paths. A wind driven environment will *always* have more dust flying around than the moon. there isn't any atmosphere to push it so it just sits until something imparts energy to it.
That's an impressive and very persuasive bit of reasoning with only the minor flaw that it's entirely wrong from beginning to end. The fact is lunar dust is very pervasive, fine, and troublesome. Here's an article about it.