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."
Re:Can't wait to see... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:At least getting rid of the waste won't be hard (Score:2, Interesting)
If we assume that at some point were going to want to use the majority of the moon for something, be it rocket launches, mining, science experiments etc, we probably dont want amount of waste sitting around, either to prevent radioactive contamination, or if we populate the earth, the wrong hands being laid on it. On the other hand, to bury it to a reasonable degree would require a considerable amount of machinery which would be extremly costly to ship to the moon. So in a choice between a radioactive landfill site on what could prove to be useful land or dragging digging machinery to the moon with the reactor, it doesnt seem to me to be particularly easy.
All that radiation from the sun... (Score:1, Interesting)
...and no way to harvest it? I have to say they may not be thinking out of the box enough... and by box, I mean the earth and atmosphere. The moon has unfiltered access to the sun's energy. They should consider ways tap that. "Solar cells" are just one way and while there have been improvements, there's a long way to go. But there are all sorts of other radiation... and is there a fluxing magnetic field around the moon like there is on earth? If so, perhaps Tesla's suppressed technology might render some assistance in that regard.
Re:At least getting rid of the waste won't be hard (Score:3, Interesting)
The episode (and book) was called "Breakaway"
I would have thought Solar power would have been a better idea. There's many reasons for Solar, not least of which, if some panels fail, then others will still keep working, so its very fault tolerant, which is a big advantage over a nuclear fission reactor. Also solar can be made light weight (its even being developed on plastic). Also there isn't any limited area problems on the moon, so they can scale up to a multi-Mega watt solar power station. (Plus no atmosphere, so greater power output than on Earth). Plus solar panels have been used in space for many years, so its usage is very well understood.
While a nuclear fission reactor does have some uses, its limited on the moon unless just for the dark side, and even then operating a base on the dark side would be difficult due to comms limitations etc..
It still makes sense they will develop small nuclear fission reactors, but it also makes more sense to push forward solar power research. All of us can benefit from solar research, (and we need it on Earth), but there are limit short term gains from small fission reactors. (Well, other than the gains the companies seeking funding get for research into fission reactors).
Re:Not solar? (Score:3, Interesting)
Attach a plow blade to the moon rover, make a flat area, and carefully lay out the ultra thin and fragile panels? It's not like they're going to get blown away by wind, and I'd be willing to bet the astronauts can be trained to respect the "don't walk on solar farm" signs.
I think the problem has more to do with nighttime energy and installation effort than it does with mass or fragility. Even with high power light weight reactors, panels would be lighter per watt generated. It's only as you head out beyond Mars that solar panels stop being viable.
Re:Can't wait to see... (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not going to be bothered with the math nor will I try to defend Heinlein's supposition that large loads would produce mushroom clouds upon impact.
But, an object that leaves the moon at roughly escape velocity will be moving much faster by the time it hits Earth's atmosphere. You've got quite a bit of potential energy relative to the Earth just by being so high above the surface - That's quite a long fall with no air to slow you down. You can't factor in strictly the kinetic energy from the launch.
LIttle matter of cooling (Score:4, Interesting)
Eh, any idea how they'd cool the thing? It's fine to split atoms to make heat, but on the Moon you need to have a closed-loop cooling system. So you have to cool off the turbine exhaust so you can feed it back into the reactor. Problem-- no atmosphere and no lakes or rivers to carry away the heat. No groundwater either. Many many many meters of loose insulating moon-dust and rock fragments before you get down to bedrock, which in itself is not all that great at conducting away heat.
Methinks the Moon is not a great place to be running a reactor or power plant of the heat-cycle variety. Maybe solar cells.
Uhh, big heatsink? (Score:3, Interesting)
Can't heat radiate directly into space? I dunno if there are any materials that currently do this efficiently.
Could the heat be recycled somehow? Seems to me if you are dumping heat out of the system, you are dumping *energy* out of the system?
Take some of the excess heat and use it for environmental heating of human dwellings/workspaces, hot water for showers (could a shower be invented which works well on the moon? dunno), cooking, etc? (Granted, there's probably more 'waste heat' than you would need for heating, cooking, and making coffee, but you could at least use some of it for that).