NASA Developing Small Nuclear Reactor For the Moon 431
marshotel writes "NASA astronauts will need power sources when they return to the moon and establish a lunar outpost. NASA engineers are exploring the possibility of nuclear fission to provide the necessary power, and they are taking initial steps toward a non-nuclear technology demonstration of this type of system."
Umm, water? (Score:4, Insightful)
Confused on Nuclear waste (Score:2, Insightful)
The response is usually "Oh won't somebody think of the children if one rocket ever dropped!".
But apparently we can send it to the moon safely?
Could somebody, who perhaps knows more about the difference between uranium before and after it has been used, enlighten me as to why this would be safer?
Not solar? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm hoping someone can explain to me why the far better-established and easily-maintained option of Solar Power isn't first on the list.
I mean: negligible atmosphere, established support-structure (the ground), 100% predictable yield, negligible material costs after setup, and land-area isn't such a big issue... can't really think of a better case for it.
Design from scratch? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not solar? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Umm, water? (Score:1, Insightful)
If you RTFA, you will learn that "...it works by splitting uranium atoms in a reactor to generate heat that then is converted into electric power".
They will probably use an RTG-style reactor, which precludes the need of water. They've been used in space before, and aren't anything that extraordinary.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_generator [wikipedia.org]
Re:Can't wait to see... (Score:5, Insightful)
The same thing that happens to everything else we brought to the moon that we didn't also use to get people/objects back. It's going to sit there. It's not like it'll be hurting anybody/anything either.
Re:Confused on Nuclear waste (Score:5, Insightful)
Getting anything into space, and all the way out of earth orbit, is monumentally EXPENSIVE.
Digging a big hole in the ground is monumentally CHEAP (at least in relative terms).
The people you've heard from, that are scared of sending radioactive material into space, are monumentally STUPID.
Also, fissile nuclear material is a highly valuable, relatively scarce, and non-renewable resource. It's more than likely that we'll need to dig that stuff up again in a century, and reprocess it. Quite a bit harder to do so if it's on it's way to Pluto.
Re:Not solar? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm hoping people will RTFA before asking stupid question...
Returning to the moon is a dry-run for going to Mars. Mars is further away from the sun, and has lots of nasty dust storms.
Re:Not solar? (Score:5, Insightful)
The ISS has an acre of solar panels, and they can be designed incredibly light-weight because they are in microgravity. Panels on the moon would require vastly more infrastructure to support them, which would increase the weight and bulk considerably.
Re:Not solar? (Score:3, Insightful)
"how often would you have to supply fissile material to a fusion reactor?"
I think you are missing a sense of scale. Nuclear fuel is INCREDIBLY energy dense. Commercial reactors refuel about a third of their rods every 18 months (I think - it's been a while since I worked at a plant), and that is after running balls to the wall, 24/7, at full output, which is up around 1000 MEGAwatts. Navy ships refuel only after YEARS of operation, and a carrier sucks up WAY more energy than a moon base would.
I imagine an initial fuel load for a moon based reactor would be designed to last the life of the base without refuelling, and the fuel load would not be that big.
Re:At least getting rid of the waste won't be hard (Score:3, Insightful)
thing is that it's the moon, there's no rain, no wind, no groundwater.
no need to bury it.
just find a crater a little out of the way and make it into a big pile.
If in future the prospect if the land being needed comes up then you just load it up into a truck and deal with it properly since that that point there would likely be more machinery around.
Hell,the place is already radioactive.
Re:Can't wait to see... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Goodbye Earth, Goodbye Moon (Score:5, Insightful)
Assume, for a moment, that the LHC destroys the Earth by turning it into a black hole. Know what would happen to the moon?
The Moon would be unaffected. It's just as happy to orbit a 5.9736*10^24 kg black hole as it is to orbit a 5.9736*10^24 kg planet.
Black holes are just gravity, people. The only difference between them and anything else with mass is that you can get closer before you hit the event horizon than you could get before you hit the surface.
A note of reality injected here (Score:3, Insightful)
Please allow me to inject a note of reality here.
There is a serious possibility that the Americans will not be establishing a lunar base in the next twenty years. Regardless of the technology or science available.
The problem is one of money. Basically the US government is broke. It runs huge deficits. This didn't make any difference in the past when there was no other place but America for super-wealthy people and governments to put their money. That has changed.
What has also changed is that oil has gotten incredibly expensive. Cheap oil allows the economy to grow. A growing economy allows huge expensive social programs like pensions and medical care to people over 60, moon projects, massive government bureaus, and permanent endless war on the other side of the world.
When the economy stops growing, house prices stop rising, and the sources of easy credit dry up, serious choices have to be made. Everything can't be afforded: some things must be abandoned. This is reality in 2008. It's not 1967 anymore.
The moon projects are easy targets. Although these projects are popular among the young and educated, these projects are expendable. There are no voters on the moon. There's no oil there. There's no one there who can be shaken down with atomic bombs to be persuaded to buy USA Treasury bonds to finance the endless deficits.
It's easy for the NASA administrators to hold press conferences and announce grandiose plans. It's easy to put big budget programs into future federal budget projections. But the coming years, when the true extent of the bankruptcy of the US government becomes apparent, these space programs might be quietly dropped. This is reality of the 21st century. Again, it's not 1967 anymore.
Re:Not solar? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not solar? (Score:4, Insightful)
A 40 KW nuclear reactor is about the tiniest nuclear reactor imaginable. I'm sure NASA isn't considering it because of its power density or its mass. Each one of the solar panel assemblies on the ISS could potentially generate 32 KW. The problem is the 28 day lunar 'day.' Solar power plants on the moon will see a significant drop in power during the lunar night (about 100% of rated power at most locations except perhaps the poles). Therefore, long duration missions would require batteries. Supplying 40 KW for 14 days would require massive batteries (and also more than 80 KW of solar arrays). Based on my back of the envelope calculations, you would need something about 3 times the size of the Fairbanks Battery Backup [wired.com]. Additionally, nuclear power is more scalable. Knowledge gained with operating tiny nuclear reactors on the Moon could also be used with larger reactors that far outstrip any potential competition by solar power.
Re:Confused on Nuclear waste (Score:5, Insightful)
Because it is a horrifically bad idea.
Nuclear waste is not waste, it is nuclear fuel that has been partially used, but still retains 90% or so of its functionality. Using feeder breeder reactors we could easily reprocess this "waste" while generating close to 10 times the energy of a standard nuclear reactor (for the same amount of fuel) while producing waste that is only potentially dangerous for a few hundred years, vs potentially thousands of years.
The only problem is that people are dumb. And the idea of building anything nuclear (pronounced Nook you ler) invokes the same kind of response as declaring that you worship satan in a southern baptist church.
Re:Not solar? (Score:5, Insightful)
Solar cells don't last forever.
In a space environment, I believe the power output from them drops by 5% every year. Solar cells on earth don't degrade that quickly because they aren't exposed to the same amount of radiation.
Also, once the solar cells have degraded, thats it. You can't repair them, they must be replaced. A nuclear reactor could have new shipments of fuel sent up.
Re:Can't wait to see... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:tbonefrog (Score:3, Insightful)