NASA Seeks Nuclear Power For Mars (scientificamerican.com) 165
New submitter joshtops shares a report from Scientific American: As NASA makes plans to one day send humans to Mars, one of the key technical gaps the agency is working to fill is how to provide enough power on the Red Planet's surface for fuel production, habitats and other equipment. One option: small nuclear fission reactors, which work by splitting uranium atoms to generate heat, which is then converted into electric power. NASA's technology development branch has been funding a project called Kilopower for three years, with the aim of demonstrating the system at the Nevada National Security Site near Las Vegas. Testing is due to start in September and end in January 2018. The last time NASA tested a fission reactor was during the 1960s' Systems for Nuclear Auxiliary Power, or SNAP, which developed two types of nuclear power systems. The first system -- radioisotope thermoelectric generators, or RTGs -- taps heat released from the natural decay of a radioactive element, such as plutonium. RTGs have powered dozens of space probes over the years, including the Curiosity rover currently exploring Mars. The second technology developed under SNAP was an atom-splitting fission reactor. SNAP-10A was the first -- and so far, only -- U.S. nuclear power plant to operate in space. Launched on April 3, 1965, SNAP-10A operated for 43 days, producing 500 watts of electrical power, before an unrelated equipment failure ended the demonstration. The spacecraft remains in Earth orbit.
Stock It Up (Score:5, Interesting)
One of the few upsides of a manned mission to Mars is that we can send all the infrastructure there before the trigger is pulled to lift any humans off of Earth. We can make sure it arrives safely, and works, rather than having to send it on the same trip as the astronauts. Even if the solar cells, ice purifiers, and hydroponics work at a rate too slow to keep up with human consumption, they could be designed to operate when noone is there, to stockpile enough resources to last the duration of a human visit. Food silos, batteries, water tanks, and a habitat can be sent and filled up beforehand. Assuming everything but the seeds were sterilized, I wonder if the resultant food could be preserved indefinitely on Mars; ya know, until the humans show up and spread their microbiome everywhere.
If a colony is dependent on regular shipments of fissile material, that could cause problems, particularly if a shipment blows up/gets its launch delayed, or if the colony desires independence. Hawking et al suggest that we should get a Mars colony in part so that we wouldn't be doomed by a third world war; however, if said colony belonged to one of the major world powers, it's much more likely to be targeted. China already has tested weapons that can destroy satellites, I wouldn't put it past them to use a weapon that would destroy their enemy's Mars colony.
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What military value would a civilian Mars colony have to expend the huge resources necessary to destroy it?
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The left's only concern about wealth is that somebody else might get it. That is their fundamental reason for hating exploration programs.
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Are you kidding me? You guys think the left is anti-exploration? The right is the side that hates science/NASA because they're afraid science/NASA might prove that god isn't real and trickle down economics is a scam.
This is the Greens on their reasons for opposing a pure science research telescope in Hawaii. An exploration program that takes place entirely in Earth and which involves not a dime of public money:
https://dgrnewsservice.org/civ... [dgrnewsservice.org]
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If robotics were sufficiently advanced to build greenhouses and farm food on Mars, what would the purpose of sending humans?
Robots already have sufficient complexity to do that job. To be fair, we already have arguments over whether we should send humans, so you may have a point there. I, for one, would like to send robots and build a base with them before I set foot on the planet, if I were making the plans. I'd much rather have a nice place to sleep all set up for me than have to sleep in my car, so to speak.
Seriously, what part of the job of building a greenhouse and growing crops do we imagine a robot can't do? Especially gi
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Really, please provide a link to general purpose robots that can build and operate a greenhouse from components that would withstand the pressure differential on Mars.
I don't think you'd actually build it there. I think you'd ship an inflatable. Then you'd use a robot fork lift to open the container, and it would blow itself up from power stored from a solar panel on top of the can it came in.
They have to be autonomous too, since with the time lag people controlling them remotely is out.
They only have to be semi-autonomous. Humans can give them instructions, and they can carry them out, and then they can stop if they have a problem. The idea is to send everything well in advance of humans, so that there's time to solve problems.
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If robotics were sufficiently advanced to build greenhouses and farm food on Mars, what would the purpose of sending humans? Surely, for that level of complexity, we could skip the complex building of habitats and just send a robot to do {whatever} the task that have in mind for humans.
Get your girlfriend/wife a really good vibrator then re-think that question. :-)
independence (Score:3)
It will never happen. At least not for a very very very long time. We have many places on earth that are not possible to be independent right now that are magnitudes easier and more habitable.
If they really want to play around, they should try it here on earth first as a proof of concept, preferably long term. The whole failed biodome experiment being a good example. Heck, put in the the Arctic or Antarctic and see how it fairs, or even just a very harsh remote region. Probably also be magnitudes cheaper to
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A Mars colony doesn't have to be a closed system like BioDome (failed) or the Soviet equivalent BIOS-3 (successful). Mars has a bunch of natural resources that make it less challenging, or more accurately challenging in a different way, than living in space.
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Re: Stock It Up (Score:2)
I don't do this often, but noone isn't a word. I keep seeing people who don't understand how spellcheck works. Even autocorrect tries to fix it.
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It's a perfectly cromulent word. Seriously though, I like how it looks more than the technically-correct usages, which irk me as much as seeing 'him/her'.
Thorium, dammit! (Score:1)
Why would NASA put effort into Uranium reactors when Thorium is so much more promising?
It doesn't get more "do-over" than an entire fucking planet. If you really must do something nuclear on it, why use the old shit?
Re:Thorium, dumb (Score:1)
Uranium works, has been demonstrated in space many times, and has a bunch of people who understand reactor design. Thoriuem is a pie in the sky idea that hasn't been demonstrated in proudction, hasn't been used commercially, and doesn't have any experts in reactor design. Oh yeah, its harder to find, extract, process, enrich, use and dispose of, and its resistance to nuclear meltdown doesn't have the same value in space.
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You should have that checked. Being deluded isn't generally a good life plan.
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NASA isn't a leader (anymore), they ride on the coat-tails of industry and the military. There has been trillions of dollars of development in the Uranium infrastructure, replicating that for Thorium would be... less efficient than using the existing systems.
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Why would NASA put effort into Uranium reactors when Thorium is so much more promising? It doesn't get more "do-over" than an entire fucking planet.
Because thorium designs have to be developed and proven out on Earth first. The ORNL work was just a proof of concept, not an operating commercial reactor.
Nuclear power is the best option... (Score:2)
... for a lot of power situations, not just space. However the 60s CND hippie generation have managed to turn it into a bogieman (not helped of course by Chernobyl caused by a lack of training and maintenance on a reactor that was a poor design to start with). Sadly the younger generation seems to have swallowed this meme wholesale without actually checking the facts (eg France has generated around 50% of its power from nuclear without serious incident since the 1960s). So good luck to Nasa getting nuclear
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The bigger issue isn't the possibility of and potential costs of nuclear incidents. Rather, it is nuclear waste management.
As a power source it's competitive if you only factor in power production and rudimentary waste management like we're doing now. But that completely falls apart if you consider the future costs of storing the nuclear waste over hundreds of thousands or millions of years.
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Where do you think Uranium comes from in the first place, the magic nuclear tree? It comes out of the ground. There is zero reason not to put the spent fuel back into it.
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"Processing the uranium out from the ore compounds is a lot of effort. Why do you think it's easier to put it back into those?"
Care to point to where I said that? Save your lame straw men for a student debate.
"Or do you think you could just grind all the waste up into fine dust and sprinkle it around?"
No, you put it into a stable borosilicate glass substance that its stable for millenia.
"It's also no longer just uranium. If it were there would be no need to get rid of it.
Additionally anything that has been
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"That works for the highly radioactive parts. What about all the irradiated concrete."
What about it? Its very mildly radioactive a solid. Bury it.
"But by transforming a substance that decays in 700 million years into one that only takes 245 thousand "
245K ? Wtf are you talking about? No civil reactor has used or created plutonium for decades (apart from maybe in NK)! Its all uranium235 or thorium.
"There aren't that many places on earth were there is no water. There fewer places if any were there is sure to
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"I just don't think the dump the waste in a hole and forget about it approach that is used in most cost calculations is viable."
Actually, you can do just that thing. It is just a matter of how deep you want to put it. An we have the technology to do it.
In short, you drill a hole in the convergent boundary between two plates. Preferably out in the ocean somewhere. I think two miles down under the sea floor is what I saw in a paper.
You put the waste on the downward plate. Plate tectonics will carry the waste holes down under the ascending plate, down into the planet where it will be "cooked" for the next few million years.
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"But not any time soon no matter what humanity does"
Possibly not, but we can make a large part of the earth unviable for crops or human habitation if we carry on the way we are. Thats bad news for 7.5 billion mouths to feed.
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"The water will destroy the facility were the glassed stuff is stored. The glass could then be crushed by cave ins."
Uranium ore in the ground has been eroded by rivers for eons. It hasn't poisoned the planet yet.
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You need to enrich the stuff for it to be useful in a reactor (or for that matter, a weapon). You can't just shove the result back into the ground and expect it to be as benign as the naturally occurring stuff. Not to mention Plutonium and other nuclear waste, which you don't want anywhere near a water supply.
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Who's factoring in the waste management costs of coal? Fly ash piles, atmospheric distribution of mercury and other fun stuff, destruction of landscapes for strip mines... someday people will tally up these costs and probably establish that fossil fuels are a zero-sum game, when you actually value the entire planet.
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Half-life, you surely heard of that. There is no need to store any nuclear waste for hundreds of thousands or millions of years.
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That is exactly what these greenie lefties are responding to. They have no idea what any of it means, so the magnitude of the numbers is what riles them up.
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"Nuclear waste" is a bit of a misnomer, from what I understand a VAST majority (I think like 95%) of what we term as nuclear waste is still perfectly usable fuel, it is simply contaminated with highly radioactive components. Those components can be removed via reprocessing, which most countries do. Once that is done the actual waste is far more compact and radioactive for far less time. The US however sabotaged its own reprocessing program by banning it back in the 70s, and then wrapping the industry in
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The bigger issue... is nuclear waste management. ...completely falls apart if you consider the future costs of storing the nuclear waste over hundreds of thousands or millions of years.
Your assumption that a nuclear waste management solution today must be essentially eternally effective is incorrect. Realistically, we only need an interim solution to contain nuclear waste until a foreseeable time when technology, resources, and knowledge advances to handle the waste more effectively. There are similar waste management examples in use too.... for example lead based paint and asbestos in buildings is dangerous to occupants, but an acceptable remedy is sealing/encapsulating it in the buildin
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Nice straw man you've got there. Did it take long to build?
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You can't do anything significant and public without idiots demonstrating at the gates.
What matters is whether or not the politicians who control the budget can (and choose to) hold office without placating them.
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"However the 60s CND hippie generation have managed to turn it into a bogieman (not helped of course by Chernobyl..."
But the most wondrous thing about space from a human culture standpoint is that there are no liberals up there to prevent us from diverting asteroids, operating nuclear reactors, and using bioengineering to modify humanity itself for improved survival in non-terrestrial environments.
Why not pressurized water? (Score:2)
We already have relatively small pressurized water reactors. It seems like a reactor that could power a submarine would be the right size for a small colony of people. Is that still too physically large, or would the problem be the quantity of water/coolant required for operation? Maybe they could figure out a way to include the human waste processing function in the reactor system? i.e. cool the reactor by peeing on it.
Problems with pressurized water on Mars (Score:2)
We already have relatively small pressurized water reactors.
Not a grand idea when you cannot have people monitoring it onsite 24/7 who are able to effect repairs. Requires high pressure piping and containment (heavy and $$) which increases the problems if there is a loss of coolant incident (not a trivial consideration). Lots of problematic failure modes not easily reconciled to space travel. Plus there is the fact that you need water which Mars has but not in abundance or easily accessible. You don't want to ship the water there
It seems like a reactor that could power a submarine would be the right size for a small colony of people.
Water as a coolant works great on
Don't invent a new power source..... (Score:3)
http://www.rexresearch.com/nucell/nucell.htm
http://autoweek.com/article/car-news/strange-life-and-stranger-death-paul-brown-case-another-smart-guy-doing-dumb-thing
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It's not the man; it's the paperwork. Literally half of the cost of building a new reactor (even a test reactor) goes to regulatory approvals.
My state is home to the Watts Bar Nuclear Generating Station. Construction started on this facility in 1973, and the first reactor was completed in 1996. The second reactor didn't come online until 2016, and it was the first new power-generation reactor to light up in 20 years.
How hard can it be? (Score:2)
Hmm, doing what amounts to a controlled crash (possibly uncontrolled) on Mars with a fission reactor. What could possibly go wrong?
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If a fission reactor crashes on Mars, presumably the planet itself will break into a group of extremely radioactive fireballs which will then collide with Earth and kill us all. Is that what the 70 years of nuclear paranoia sci-fi has you thinking?
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If a fission reactor crashes on Mars, presumably the planet itself will break into a group of extremely radioactive fireballs which will then collide with Earth and kill us all. Is that what the 70 years of nuclear paranoia sci-fi has you thinking?
Well, and Hollywood. Everything we know about radioactive materials, we learned from Hollywood. If a radioactive spider bites you, you become super strong and can cling to the ceiling with cilia in your hands and toes!
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Global dust storms (Score:2)
A small area of the planet being radioactive. But that's ok, with no life as we know it, not much weather to blow stuff around, and lots of land mass, we've got plenty of chances at another try.
"Not much weather"? You mean except for the global dust storms [nasa.gov] that could distribute fallout far and wide? With dust that sticks to everything like styrofoam peanuts?
Misdirection (Score:3, Interesting)
Here's my conspiracy theory.
While they may see potential value for Mars, I see this as a way to acclimatize people to the idea that nuclear is a safe option. Where NASA is in the industry and previous accidents aside, the American public, as a whole, still regards NASA as being the same, awesome NASA that it was in the 50s.
That being the case, if this can bring nuclear into the public consciousness as something that's good and safe and useful, then it won't be about Mars, it will be about how we can "leverage what was learned from developing reactors usable in the harsh Martian landscape for use safely at home".
Re:Misdirection (Score:4, Insightful)
While they may see potential value for Mars, I see this as a way to acclimatize people to the idea that nuclear is a safe option.
So please tell me what other options does NASA have for power initially? Solar which can't provide all the amount of energy necessary? Fossil fuels because Mars is full of oil? Wind energy is minimal and you have to send/assemble extremely large wind mills. Geo-theormal is good for long term; however, it requires construction. Right now solar and nuclear are not the "safe" options. They are the best options for initial colonization.
Where NASA is in the industry and previous accidents aside, the American public, as a whole, still regards NASA as being the same, awesome NASA that it was in the 50s.
Doesn't change the fact that nuclear and solar are the best option for the initial settlement for Mars.
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Not sure what you're going to do with fossil fuels without oxygen.
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You spelled fusion wrong (Score:1)
We've had workable fusion power plants that could fit into a walk-in closet for a few years now.
They mostly are being used in military activities.
Fission is so last decade.
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Too late.
The 'the most-retarded-/. poster award for the year.' award was already given out upthread.
AECL Nuclear Battery (Score:1)
I'm late to the party with this, but Atomic Energy Canada designed an Nuclear Battery (self contained low maintenance uranium reactor) that would output 2400 kW (thermal) or 600 kW (electric).
Might be a starting point for a colony system.
Nuclear Battery (pdf) [nuclearfaq.ca]
Watt is no unit of electrical power (Score:2)
and you cannot produce 1 Watt. They probably meant something like 500 Wh or similiar.
Re: NASA is increasingly insane (Score:2, Interesting)
No, troll, this isn't simply using 1960s technology. I understand the sarcasm in your post, but I still see that you're a troll.
There are challenges with fission reactors in space that don't exist on Earth. Specifically, you have to cool the fuel to prevent a meltdown. On Earth, this is accomplished by pumping large amounts of water through the reactor. The steam is used to generate electricity, but it also keeps the fuel cool. We generally build nuclear plants by bodies of water such as rivers, and the exc
Re: NASA is increasingly insane (Score:1)
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That drawing off of heat is not just "to prevent a meltdown." The heat represents the output energy itself, which to be efficiently converted into electricity has to be dumped into as low-temperature a heat sink as possible. We use large bodies of water as heat sinks on Earth for ALL thermal power plants because the temperature differential is the greatest.
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Thermal radiators have been a part of spacecraft for decades. A significant portion of ISSs external equipment is devoted towards that end. No doubt they're not as good at it as terrestrial methods that can sink it back into the environment (air, water, ground) but they work. A fission generator would simply need to be scaled to fit the maximum thermal dissipation potential of its radiators. Making them fail-safe might be a bit difficult (continued dissipation of maximum heat potential despite power/con
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How hot do black body thermal radiators on spacecraft run?
That's the cold side of any thermodynamic cycle for power, hot cold side temperatures make for craptacular efficiency.
If you're going to build a nuke for Mars, you would design it to not be started until you got it onto mars and had a _use_ for the waste heat as well as a heat dump (ground loop?).
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They could use peltier thermoelectric plates. All they need to do is put the generated heat on one side and make the other side cold with a flow of wat... I mean with an air fa... never mind.
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No, NASA is very sane and totally right to use nuclear power for this use case. Nuclear power for earth side, widespread usage is utter lunacy due to the eternal waste, the immense costs and lastly the inherent incalculable dangers. Idiocy like thorium reactors and reprocessing are insane, not this.
For a small bootstrap colony or a science station on mars, nuclear power is by far the best option right now: proven and fairly reliable, small (think reactors from subs), easy to transport and set up (you have t
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If there ever was simple life on Mars at one time, then there might be coal. And by the time we settle the planet carbon could be a major construction material, making coal a valuable resource once again.
Re:NASA should use Coal! (Score:5, Funny)
I wonder if Trump is secretly a steam punk?
A coal power spacecraft with gold trims, and hardwood frames.
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adorned with fine corinthian leather.
Re:NASA is increasingly insane (Score:4, Interesting)
Research & exploration are NASAs main missions and there is a need for around 500Kw in order to produce Methane & O2 for return flights from Mars that would be difficult to produce otherwise (at least on initial missions).
Spending billions on ILS launchers that have no mission is insanity (though Nasa spends the money it's the Senate that directs them to do so and micromanages the budget so that they must spread it around all 50 states).
It's interesting that the SNAP-10A is still up there as almost all opposition to the use of reactors in space is "What it it crashes on launch" by people that refuse to believe that we can build containment vessels sufficient to not spill the reactants even after a failed launch. I wonder, given that SNAP-10A is already in orbit, and didn't stop working due to any fault of the reactor itself whether it's fuel could be recovered to power a modern reactor. Probably not as it certainly wasn't engineered to to be disassembled easily, especially in space and things like vacuum welding may be an issue but it'd be a great hack if they could.
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"Research and exploration is done by robots. Why would they need a return flight?"
It's destined for the Trump voters who believe in "slave children" on Mars.
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Hello sheldonbot.
Some of us are intent on leaving our parents the basement (the earth) as not all exploration and/or interactions can be performed remotely. Should you be one of those pretexting that "it's too expensive and useless", then I reply that so are many other domains in which we spend so muck more: Cosmetics, recreational drugs, etc. I won't stop you from your face creams and getting high/drunk all the time, now move out of the way and let me and those like me move onto exploring and then colonizi
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Reasoning through absurdities just proves that you're very bad at reasoning. I've lived on 3 continents and visited 5 but that has little to do with my drive to see mankind explore and colonize the solar system.
Your argument that Mars is the "ultimate explorers destination" is also pitifully weak as a greater even more widespread dream is visiting other stars but that is far beyond our capacities. Mars, isn't as with the progress in launchers we are on the cusp of visiting and even colonizing Mars.
However i
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"It's interesting that the SNAP-10A is still up there as almost all opposition to the use of reactors in space is "What it it crashes on launch" by people that refuse to believe that we can build containment vessels sufficient to not spill the reactants even after a failed launch."
SNAP-10A did not failed at launch. It failed once in a stable orbit. And there is it, still in LEO.
Maybe we can build such containment vessels able to survive a launch fail in the very first seconds but an uncontrolled reentry just a few minutes too late and no practical containment vessel is going to avoid a spill.
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The scary thing about SNAP-10A is that it's been exposed to decades of bombardment by micrometeorites. It's been shedding parts, literally falling apart, for decades. Using it for parts, ignoring the fact that much of its fuel has decayed to uselessness, means getting close to it to see how bad it is.
We should ask the Russians for advice. They flew their TOPAZ reactors successfully.
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I subsequently took a closer look at the SNAP-10A design by following the rURL in the extract (I know, I know, actually reading of TFAs, the horrors...).
Snap-10A used a subcritical core that they brought to criticality by positioning beryllium Neutron reflectors and adding a Sodium-Potassium moderator. This all produced heat that was used to power a thermocouple.
I assume that shutting it down was by repositioning the reflectors. Once no longer critical the moderator would have cooled to the point the moder
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That NaK moderator is some terrifying stuff. It's a eutectic mixture that's a liquid at room temperature and will spontaneously combust from the moisture in earth air.
I'm stunned they let that fly. Excited, but stunned. :)
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Going to Mars makes no sense anyway, it's just another flag planting exercise. Mars is the politically stated goal for NASA because anything else requires 5 minutes explanation to idiot politicians who require "announcables".
Stating that their goal is Mars satisfies that requirement and allows them to spend money on developing heavy launchers, technology for in situ resource utilization and other technologies for long duration missions.
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Progress, normally starts with a lets see if if we can do this.
Once we know how to get there, then we can determine if there is a value on returning. Sure we romantically see a Sci-Fi future of a Mars colony, however Mars at its best is Earth at its worst, for us. There is value in protecting or species in expanding out, a Mars colony will help hedge our bets on survival. A solar eruption has a slim chance on hitting both Earth and Mars. Also having two extinction level asteroids hitting both Earth and Ma
Sensibility (Score:2)
Going to Mars makes no sense anyway, it's just another flag planting exercise.
While flag planting would be a part of it, going to Mars by necessity will have to be more than that. It will have varying amounts of finance, exploration, science, and engineering as drivers. As for whether it makes sense, we're going to disagree about the sensibility of it I think. Nearly all exploration and discovery isn't objectively justifiable prior to the mission. When Columbus sailed across the Atlantic he had no idea what he might find. That's the nature of discovery. Blanket statements that
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Apex predators, like humans, rarely see an extinction level event coming. It's not an exercise in flag planting; It's about redundancy.
You back up your porn to keep it safe, right? I want to make a backup of human civilization.
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They should talk to the Russians, they have much more experience with nuclear reactors in space. Been doing it for decades.
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Yes, why not just buy a few from the Russians? It'd save a lot of trouble.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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And now what, making news for planing to use tech that's been used since the 60s?
We were building reactors on other planets in the '60s? I guess I really wasn't paying attention.
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they rehired homer to run the nukes.
Re: NASA is increasingly insane (Score:1)
So you can hear the voices too! They give me lithium so I can't hear the voices, but I only pretend I take it.
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Without a magnetic field, Mars is bombarded with cosmic radiation constantly. I don't think spilling a few pounds of Uranium on the surface would make a difference.
If you spill it in a place we plan to use for human habitation eventually, and you manage to scatter it in the process, it'll be a damned shame. That doesn't mean we shouldn't use a nuke anyway, but it has to be designed such that if it does make a mess, it makes a very small and self-contained mess.