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U.S. eyes building nuclear power plants on the moon, Mars
- ETHisso2017 6y agoHaven't they been eyeing that since the 60s?
- acidburnNSA 6y agoYes indeed. The SNAP program was the big one really, culminating with an actual reactor in orbit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SNAP-10A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SNAP-10A The NERVA program was one part (mostly for propulsion) with many reactor tests. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NERVA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NERVA The Soviets had a few dozen nuclear reactors in space powering satellites hunting submarines.
- siberianbear 6y agoIt makes sense. Voyager I was powered with nuclear energy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_1#Power https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_1#Power
- DuskStar 6y agoAlong with just about every other deep-space probe, and the recent Mars rovers. RTGs just give so much more power per pound in the outer solar system. True reactors - not just RTGs - are a bit less common, but have a long history of use in the USSR's radar reconnaissance satellites. (The US only ever launched one, SNAP-10A [0]. The USSR launched more than 30) 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SNAP-10A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SNAP-10A
- tectonic 6y agoCorrect, along with a bunch of other deep space craft. See my comment down thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23954547 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23954547
- IAmEveryone 6y agoIt makes no sense. Curiosity was powered with solar cells. The totality of Voyager’s scientific output is... low. Like most space exploration. A nuclear accident that distributes enriched plutonium as fine particles throughout the atmosphere would cause thousands of lives if the generally accepted theory of the harms of radiation (linear with exposure) are correct.
- bhhaskin 6y agoCuriosity is powered by an RTG and has no solar cells. Spirit and Opportunity where solar powered, but where expected to only operate 90 days due to dust build up on the solar cells. Solar pretty much doesn't make any sense on the moon or Mars due to the environments.
- azernik 6y agoA caveat - solar works on the Moon in certain circumstances (polar locations with sunlight most of the time), and on Mars with a bit of maintenance (Spirit and Opportunity lasted much longer than expected because of wind cleaning dust off the panels). But yes, to your general point, nuclear power has serious advantages.
- awalton 6y agoCuriosity and Perseverance both have radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs), virtually identical in design: https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/spacecraft/rover/electrical-power/ https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/spacecraft/rover/electrical-p... The problem is for human inhabitants, the size of an RTG needed to provide power would be enormous and extremely dangerous to put into orbit. A more traditional fission generator could be much safer to put into orbit with the right design constraints, and deliver about a hundred times more power. One such design would be to fuel the reactor on-orbit, and to launch the fuel in a vehicle with an escape system and isolation cask to ensure the fuel's safety during launch even in the event of failure... even though I honestly don't believe NASA will choose this option because of the weight/multiple launch problem, and the fact that they really want a reactor that's autonomous with respect to fueling and almost all aspects of serviceability. They're already playing around with designs on their own, even before they started soliciting commercial manufacturers and design partners to get in on it, with Kilopower and their 1KW KRUSTY prototype.
- heimatau 6y agoNot only that most US Military ships are powered by it.
- bhhaskin 6y agoOnly super carriers and subs are nuclear powered. Everything else is conventional.
- bullen 6y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H62hZJVqs2o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H62hZJVqs2o 5:35 he talks about the plutonium generator.
- jimnotgym 6y agoI know it is good to build nuclear power plants away from habitation, but this seems a bit impractical.
- Covzire 6y agoI think the idea is there will be a habitat close by.
- DarthGhandi 6y agoThe GP was a joke comment.
- nine_k 6y agoHow do you power e.g. a large (radio)telescope array on the Moon when it's on the dark side? It can be completely robot-controlled, but it would still need significant power.
- angstrom 6y agoPick a spot that's constantly lit with sunlight? https://www.nature.com/news/2007/071023/full/news.2007.182.html https://www.nature.com/news/2007/071023/full/news.2007.182.h...
- fuckyah 6y agoPolluting other stars?!? Great idea. F nuclear
- magic5227 6y agoStupid question, but if it's only 10kw, why not use solar + batteries? Certainly should weigh and cost less "the reactor cannot weigh more than 7,700 pounds..."
- JoshTriplett 6y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_panels_on_spacecraft#Ionizing_radiation_issues_and_mitigation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_panels_on_spacecraft#Ion... might be one reason. That said, the ISS uses enough solar panels to generate 120kW, so it's certainly possible.
- magic5227 6y ago"Other glass coverings, such as fused silica and lead glasses, may reduce this efficiency loss to less than 1% per year." doesnt seem that bad actually. Perhaps the batteries would die too quickly being charged/discharged so often.
- cmrx64 6y agoi wonder what the lifecycle costs of battery/panel replacement are vs repair+fuel, none of this stuff lasts forever out there
- cbanek 6y agoAt least on the surface of the moon, you're going to be in darkness for 14 days every 28. This not only means you won't be generating solar power, but your battery efficiency will probably also take a hit due to the cold temperatures (not to mention, you'll have to heat things too). So you'd have to have enough batteries for 14 days.
- DarthGhandi 6y agoThere's small areas at the poles which are called peaks of eternal light, but for the most part you are entirely correct. I find those pushing solar on Mars to be more perplexing, for humans to go there we are going to need nuclear, there's simply no way around this. Many have an understandable aversion to nuclear but for anything on other bodies the alternatives can't compete.
- al3xandre 6y agoWhat if the rocket carrying the reactor explodes ?
- philwelch 6y agoNot necessarily a problem. You don’t have to launch it with the fuel rods in, if it would be safer to store the fuel rods a different way for launch. Ultimately you do need high levels of safety, but only about the same level that’s needed for ships at sea, since many of them have nuclear reactors.
- defterGoose 6y agoIt might fallout.
- acidburnNSA 6y agoMany reactors are envisioned to be launched by chemical means and then turned on remotely. Before a nuclear reactor turns on and starts splitting atoms, you can hold its fuel in your hand no problem.
- Robotbeat 6y agoIn order to get approval to launch nuclear material, the launch vehicle must be nuclear-rated (like human-rating, it ensures safety). With the recent retirement of the Delta II, only the Atlas V is currently nuclear-rated, but eventually others may be. Additionally, the fuel is encased in boxes designed to withstand launch failure and impact into the ocean without releasing the contents. In the case of RTGs, the fuel is always releasing heat and is always radioactive. For fission reactors, the fuel is relatively inert and non-radioactive until it is turned on. The casing works pretty well. I believe there's even an instance where there WAS a launch failure with an RTG (Atlas V has never had a legitimate launch failure and it has flown almost 100 times), and they fished it out and reused the fuel for another mission.
- IAmEveryone 6y ago“It’s totally save! See here, were it says ‘nuclear-rated’? That means nothing can happen. They forgot this plaque at Fukushima, which is why the accident happened”
- nimbius 6y agothis is insane. the full cradle-to-grave lifecycle of nuclear energy on our own planet is shamefully underdeveloped given how much we rely on nuclear power. -plants are run far longer than their lifespan was ever designed. most have posted leaks and accidents of various sizes that could be easily avoided. -waste is just buried. no attempt at salvage, and nothing can be done to make it safe. the US has 80 sites alone. most will be dangerous indefinitely. -3 mile island, fukushima, and chernobyl could likely all have been prevented. all include an exclusion zone of some shape or size. none have experienced meaningful amounts of cleanup. -Nuclear is a one-time thing. one you exhaust the mines on the moon, youre out of power and you've done nothing to embrace renewable energy. -renewable energy is essentially infinite on the moon. the moon can reach 120c, easily enough to drive steam turbines. there is plenty of room for both terrestrial and tethered orbital solar sails. the whole effort smacks of pandering to a dying industry.
- acidburnNSA 6y ago- There were metal coupons placed in the reactors at the beginning that they pull out occasionally and test all the time to see if the vessel is still ok to run. So far so good. Other equipment can be maintained or replaced. - Nuclear power is the only energy source I'm aware of that internalizes all of its waste. Commercial nuclear sits in dry casks which have never, to my knowledge, injured or killed a single person. C.f. fossil and biofuel waste which kills 8 million people per year (!) - See fossil and biofuel externalities above. When you consider all these accidents, the safety of nuclear is still on par with wind and solar. https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy - Nuclear energy is renewable. There's enough uranium in seawater to power breeders for millions of years, and that replenishes continuously through runoff and plate tectonics for billions of years (~as long as the sun will run). http://large.stanford.edu/publications/coal/references/docs/pad11983cohen.pdf http://large.stanford.edu/publications/coal/references/docs/... For space, Voyager 1 is still sending nuclear-powered signals back from beyond the solar system. It was launched in 1977 Nuclear energy does have some pretty legitimate physical advantages in space thanks to good old E=MC²
- nine_k 6y agoThis is misinformed. The full cradle-to-grave lifecycle of nuclear power on our planet is underdeveloped or halted due to alarmism. - Waste can definitely be reprocessed if new power plant reactors were built, capable of burning such waste; we have a few such reactors but too few to process all the waste in a short time. An additional problem is that the waste contains plutonium, and various nuclear weapons limitation treaties may have clauses about production of plutonium. (Pu is of course a fine nuclear reactor fuel, if used correctly.) - 3 Mile Island disaster [1] and Fukushima disaster ended up with very, very few casualties. Chernobyl, of course, produced many casualties, but to achieve that, the operators had to explicitly switch off almost all the safety systems of the reactor, and then do a number of grossly incompetent actions. Fukushima had a huge tsunami and a huge earthquake, and misconfigured cooling pumps. - Nuclear is a one-time thing. But that time is plenty long. I do not expect the nuclear reactors on the moon to ever exceed 10 GW of power in total. Also, there are no plans to mine uranium on the Moon; a ton of fuel delivered from Earth would last quite a long time. - Renewable energy definitely should be harvested on the Moon! But to pass it to the dark side, you'd need to build and maintain serious transmission infrastructure. It could be more expensive and less reliable than a small local reactor. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island_accident#Health_effects_and_epidemiology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island_accident#Hea...
- Robotbeat 6y agoThe headline is potentially misleading. There are already "nuclear power plants" based on radioisotope decay of Pu238 on Mars (and old ones on the Moon) as well as beyond, such as Voyager 1, 2, and New Horizons (all of which are still operating). They're called RTGs. In order to get approval to launch nuclear material, the launch vehicle must be nuclear-rated (like human-rating, it ensures safety). With the recent retirement of the Delta II, only the Atlas V is currently nuclear-rated, but eventually others may be. Additionally, the fuel is encased in boxes designed to withstand launch failure and impact into the ocean without releasing the contents. In the case of RTGs, the fuel is always releasing heat and is always radioactive. For fission reactors, the fuel is relatively inert and non-radioactive until it is turned on.
- sandworm101 6y agoI think they are going for something more than a simple RTG. I read a few years ago about Stirling engines in zero/low gravity. I think that is what they are going for, something with moving parts, rather than a relatively inefficient static RTG.
- Robotbeat 6y agoYeah, it’s called Kilopower. A small fission reactor using Stirling engines. Up to 10 kilowatts electric
- hurxnid 6y agoCan I have two for my house?
- gambiting 6y agoHalf a century ago some companies actually planned for things like that - a small nuclear reactor that you would bury under your house and it would provide you with power for decades. It went the same way the nuclear car did - the concept would work but it's just too dangerous without constant supervision.
- tectonic 6y agoI fell down a Wikipedia Hole deep into the history of nuclear reactors in space. There are many radioisotope heater units (RHUs) in space, such as those used by Chang'e 4 to survive the cold lunar nights, and radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs), such as the MHW-RTGs used by the Voyagers, the GPHS-RTGs used by Cassini and New Horizons, and the MMRTGs used by Curiosity and Perseverance. (An RTG using 241Am has been proposed for an interstellar mission, as it’s 432 year half-life could provide 500+ years of power [1].) The only nuclear fission reactor launched by the US, and the world’s first, was SNAP 10-A, a 235U - Zirconium hydride reactor with a thermal power output of 30 kW and sodium-potassium (NaK) coolant. It was launched in 1965, stopped working after only 43 days, and has undergone 7 “anomalous events” in which nearly 50 trackable pieces have been seen shedding from the parent body. It should stay in orbit for 3000 years unless it breaks up further. The remaining 30 or so known launched fission reactors were in Soviet RORSATs: nuclear-powered, ocean-surveillance, active radar satellites in LEO that required periodic boosts to prevent reentry. They were designed to launch their enriched 235U reactors into a high orbit at the end of their operational lives, but this didn’t always happen. (Those high orbits will last 300-1000 years, but the nuclear fuel has a half-life of 70,000 years… so future generations may not think highly of us.) In 1978, the Cosmos 954 RORSAT malfunctioned, reentered, and broke apart over northern Canada with the reactor attached, scattering radioactive debris over a 800 km long region and increasing awareness of the challenges around space debris— the USSR eventually paid $3 million in cleanup liability, about a ⅕ of the true cost. Other satellites have also broken up and spread radioactive debris, including the US’s Transit 5BN3 (carried a SNAP RTG) and the USSR’s Cosmos 1402 RORSAT, or have leaked radioactive coolant in orbit, such as the higher power and higher orbit Kosmos 1818 and Kosmos 1867 RORSATs, which both seem to have leaked trails of metallic NaK coolant. The usefulness of the Gamma Ray Spectrometer on NASA’s SolarMax mission was reduced by anomalous gamma ray emissions from these higher reactors. Collisional breakups among the ~30 reactors in orbit are likely over the next few hundred years [2]. Near future use of nuclear power in space may include NASA’s Kilopower reactor and Advanced Stirling Radioisotope Generator, and potentially even nuclear rockets. Related: This 158 page NASA PDF [3] contains a delightfully detailed history of space debris and was a primary source for this writeup. [1] http://www.niac.usra.edu/files/library/meetings/misc/trieste_may02_mtg/McNutt_Ralph.pdf http://www.niac.usra.edu/files/library/meetings/misc/trieste... [2] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/027311779190540Z https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0273117791... [3] https://web.archive.org/web/20170503083646/https://ston.jsc.nasa.gov/collections/TRS//_techrep/TP-1999-208856.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20170503083646/https://ston.jsc.... (If you're into this sort of nerdery, I write about this stuff weekly in The Orbital Index - https://orbitalindex.com https://orbitalindex.com)
- nicemancool 6y agoAmerica, please work on vaccine, improving healthcare infrastructure and then think about nuclear reactors
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- pferde 6y agoThis is not a game of Civilization, you know. We are allowed to work on multiple things at the same time.
- excalibur 6y ago> The U.S. wants to build nuclear power plants that will work on the moon and Mars, and on Friday put out a request for ideas from the private sector on how to do that. Stop picking fights with all the other countries. Take climate change seriously. Maybe then you can survive long enough to build things on Mars.
- garmaine 6y agoWhile I get the intent of what you are saying, you should know that the US is the only space faring nation that is trying hard to be collaborative and inclusive in the peaceful exploration and utilization of space and space exploration.
- IAmEveryone 6y agoEU countries have like one space agency among the 20 of them, which looks somewhat collaborative. They also did not recently create “space force” to militarize space and pander for votes in the most obnoxious way possible.
- spoopyskelly 6y agoESA is also the most useless one.
- coldtea 6y ago>the US is the only space faring nation that is trying hard to be collaborative and inclusive Hasn't the US been using Russian facilities and rockets to go to the (jointy built with Russia and others) ISS for the past decades? That seems collaborative to me...
- option_greek 6y agoYes. This will ensure that other countries also will stop fighting and take climate change seriously. And of course, every country will also learn to sit tight instead of racing to explore space while USA figures out climate change. /s
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- praveen9920 6y agoAlthough the title is bit misleading, power plants on mars is exciting. Everyone has been thinking about living on mars but I see that building infrastructure first before sending humans is the right way to go forward. Power is the first step towards it. It is like water/river on earth. Civilizations are built and grown around them. Hopefully we can find a sustainable way to dispose or recycle the waste from these reactors. POssibly for terraforming?
- d_burfoot 6y agoI think the first step towards large scale human activity in space is the construction of substantial industrial facilities on the moon. The central advantage of such facilities is that it will be much much cheaper to launch material into space from the moon, because it has lower gravity and less atmosphere. When those facilities are fully operational, we'll be able to send large numbers of vehicles into space, including big residential ships where lots of people could live for extended periods of time. It's not clear to me why it would be better to live on Mars (or some other planet/moon) than on a well-designed spaceship.
- onion2k 6y agoThe central advantage of such facilities is that it will be much much cheaper to launch material into space from the moon... Unless you're making things out of stuff that's already on the moon you'd have to get the raw material from Earth to the Moon, and then from the Moon to where you want it in space. There might well be advantages to doing that, raw materials can be fired in to space at higher Gs than manufactured parts using a railgun for example, but the cost of building a Moon factory is likely to mean the cost of building on the Moon is still much higher for a long time.
- antepodius 6y agoThe point is explicitly to use materials from the moon.
- pseudonymousgun 6y agoSimple and genuine question, why does the US feel entitled to all natural resources and do as it pleases ? Isn't the Moon and the mars common to all humanity ? Why does the US assume it can do whatever it wants on these planets ? With this, other countries will join the race, and soon moon and mars will be exploited just like we have unleashed massive ecological destruction on earth.
- bryanrasmussen 6y agoThe moon does not have an ecology to destroy. on edit: not that this gives the U.S rights to it, but ecological destruction is not a result of the U.S exploiting the Moon.
- pseudonymousgun 6y agoTrue, but i wasn't referring to exploitation of the ecology on the Moon - of course, there is no ecology on Moon. I was referring to the ecological destruction on earth (consumer culture and profit motives driving us to the brink of ecological collapse on earth). There are other studies where impacts of the first world countries and their economies on the planet is well documented, but i do not wish to enter into that conversation as such. Countries are thinking of planets as resources to be extracted and profit from, which in itself is incorrect, imo. This is a kinder way of living in harmony with our nature (again imo) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Lc_dlVrg5M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Lc_dlVrg5M
- keiferski 6y agoI would actually argue that the ecologically-minded should push for off-world resource extraction and industrial production, as it would allow for the Earth to return to a more harmonic state.
- pseudonymousgun 6y agoYou made some interesting points down below, but i couldn't reply to those, hence responding here :) Tbh, i am enjoying your arguments as such! > barring some sort of total worldwide wipe of electronic data, the information and knowledge will still be out there Isn't the world shifting in its warfare strategies ? We fought with different tools at different times. But the modern warfare seems to be moving towards misinformation, destruction of information etc ? > I'd say it's inevitable that over time, humans will re-centralize and re-organize. Agreed! It seems that eventually we would have to re-organize! > Civilizations seem to benefit from having competition, as long as they don't destroy / are destroyed by them. It's a fine balance. Agree with this one too, but i am more worried about generations that would follow us. It is a very fine balance indeed, hope humanity treads it with reason :)
- baron816 6y agoI really don't get the rush to try to travel to/colonize Mars. Mars is a really awful place for humans to live or visit, and it would be incredibly expensive to try. Why not wait 50-100 years when we have safe, compact fusion reactors, have fast enough engines to reach Mars in under a month, and have an economic imperative to harvest the asteroid belt? We gain nothing meaningful now--we're just fulfilling the fantasy of some middle aged men.
- jamestimmins 6y agoHow do you think these technologies get developed? Going to Mars is the impetus for developing this tech.
- mytailorisrich 6y agoThe most sensible way to develop these technologies is to colonize the Moon first. It is obviously much nearer, travel is much simpler and cheaper, and communication is near instant (1s delay vs. ~30 minutes).
- fastball 6y agoI get better at sports when I play people better than me, not when I go for the easiest opponent.
- mytailorisrich 6y agoThat does not contradict my previous comment. Colonizing the Moon is a big step up. One progresses better when they have a step by step plan. In my view, targeting Mars and ignoring the Moon is not a rational approach, it's an emotional and PR-driven driven approach. It's a less effective use of resources but grabs more headlines. There is also obviously the race aspect and the drive to be the first to reach a place. But in the long term I suspect that reality will catch up with the hype and that actual colonization of Mars will be preceded by a step on the Moon.
- Bombthecat 6y agoIs there something which they can transform on the moon to get fuel or something? Using those nuclear power plants?
- aeternum 6y agoWe've confirmed there is ice on the moon deep in the craters so we should be able to convert that into hydrogen fuel and oxidizer.
- valuearb 6y agoWe aren’t sure how much regolith is mixed with that ice, or how we can process it without using massive amounts of energy. It’s not like Mars where water and CO2 are everywhere.
- aeternum 6y agoGood point. The moon is probably most useful as a testbed for Mars (since we can iterate much more quickly).
- valuearb 6y agoIt’s a terrible test bed for Mars because it’s environment is so vastly different. - You can’t use use aerobraking to land. This means you can land much larger cargos on Mars. - Your habitat has to be able to withstand temps at least 150 degrees colder and 200 degrees hotter than what Mars requires. - Your climate control system has to manage this heat/cold for two weeks at a time instead of 12 hours at a time. - Since there is no atmosphere or rain, Luna has razor sharp dust. You need entirely different space suits. - To survive you need power storage to last for two weeks at a time instead of 12 hours at a tube. - The moon doesn’t have liquid water, or easily accessible water ice. - It’s ice is mixed in rocks frozen at absolute zero buried in polar craters, hundreds of degrees colder than motions of square KM of Martian surface ice sheets hundreds of meters deep. - Luna doesn’t have any easily accessible CO2, or Carbon, or the same for Iron, which litters the surface of Mars. - You can’t produce methane as fuel on the moon, only H2. H2 is much harder to store for long periods. - Etc, etc
- tromp 6y ago> The reactor must be able to generate an uninterrupted electricity output of at least 10 kilowatts. The average U.S. residential home, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, uses about 11,000 kilowatt-hours per year. Would be more helpful to express that as 11000/365/24 = 1.256 kilowatt, so you understand that the reactor could only power 8 U.S. homes. Btw, what are non-residential homes?
- danielheath 6y agoHoliday homes, homes held as a capital investment and not leased out, homes of people who have entered long-term care but not sold the primary residence...
- gspr 6y agoI've always found the use of kWh/year so absurd. I mean Wh is kinda weird as a unit for energy, but this is just plain asburd.
- hurxnid 6y agoNot if you work in the power industry.
- bufferoverflow 6y agoWh is directly equivalent to joules. It makes perfect sense as a unit of energy. 1 Wh = 3600 joules
- coliveira 6y agoThis doesn't make much sense, they're probably just trying to respond to recent progress in Chinese missions to Mars, e.g.: http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2020-07/24/c_139238091.htm http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2020-07/24/c_139238091.htm
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- jonplackett 6y agoHow bad would it be if whatever fissile material is needed for this (presumably much larger than previously) power plant were exploded above Florida in a rapid unscheduled disassembly?
- messe 6y agoThe fuel would be encased in a protective enclosure designed to survive launch failure.
- jonplackett 6y agoPretty impressive. I didn’t think much could survive such a massive explosion
- jasonwatkinspdx 6y agoFor actual fission reactors and not RTGs, it's not bad. The reactors are safe to be around until they're switched on, and this sort of reactor design won't be switched on until it's in its final position.
- Havoc 6y agoWell I guess there you can at least shoot the waste into space easier
- henearkr 6y agoI'm surprised that nobody is commenting on the true exciting possibility left over: to directly mine (then use) uranium from Mars. Completely feasible, and completely sustainable. That would be a huge energy resource to develop Mars.
- dungdongdang 6y agoand why in the world would we do that? you don't need a lot of uranium, and there's plenty on earth. yeah, let's get a bunch of equipment to mars and build a mine bumblefuck miles away where we can't even get a little toy car to function without breaking down in several years. speaking of exciting possibilities: did you know we have the possibility of refining oil into jet fuel, right on an airplane? then we can use that jet fuel directly on the airplane.
- fyrn- 6y agoThey were talking about the future. One day if mars has high energy requirements, from settlements of anything really, solar panels may not be enough. In such a future developing nuclear power infrastructure on Mars might be worthwhile. But you only looked one inch in front of your face, and dismissed their comment so that you got to play the practical sensible engineer. What makes sense in engineering is context dependent, don't be so quick to dismiss.
- dungdongdang 6y agoone day, when mars has high energy requirements, it will still be easier to mine on earth and bring uranium to mars. there will never be a time when it is not. not sure what you are not getting here. unless you mean millions of years in the future, when humanity is dead, and mars is terraformed and as friendly an environment to build a mine as earth. don't be so quick to make up stuff people never said.
- ginko 6y ago> Completely feasible, and completely sustainable. Setting up the facilities to mine, process and purify uranium on another planet does seem like a major technical challenge to me.
- cblconfederate 6y agoThat is going to be a long-ass cable
- yakshaving_jgt 6y agoI believe the band Rage Against the Machine made a song about this. It was called Take The Power Back.
- nullc 6y agoWe finally found some place that wasn't in anyone's backyard.
- holografix 6y agoIncredibly exciting! We’re living a new Cold War like space race and China is catching up. I wonder what are the perceived economic and military benefits of establishing a presence on Mars. Or is it just political capital? What happens if China gets there first? Will they claim it?
- bawana 6y agoGranted a solar array ON the moon is not going to work half the time. But how about a solar array on a satellite around the moon? It would be cheaper to deploy. Already exists. 10 kw can be generated by an array the size of a small rooftop. Getting the power to the moon is the remaining engineering challenge. And learning how to do this would have tremendous benefits for the exploration of space in general. Although current tech using masers exists, I cannot imagine why we could not use recently developed high frequency lasers to boil water on the moon to run a steam turbine. (Which we would need to get from a comet). Besides the obvious steampunk attraction of a steam engine on the moon, the presence of a large reservoir of heat energy at a stable temperature could facilitate the temperature regulation of a nearby colony. And the constant supply of energy could drive ion engines that use the dust of the moon as a reaction mass making trips to lunar orbit free. I just don’t like the idea of concentrated points of failure that are easy to subvert into weapons like a dirty bomb. We need to be cognizant of human’s ability to turn even the best invention to evil when someone gets disgruntled. Failure modes need to be assessed for any technology going forward and must include intentionally engineered ‘successful’ attempts at causing failure. If the internet were designed to thwart the dark side of humanity, we might still have the beautiful thing that existed when the internet was first created: a channel for communication free of spam, advertising, spying, but that’s another rant. If we kept commerce OFF the net, it might still be a place where humans could enjoy the benefits of fellowship. Sorry I couldn’t help myself.
- timbit42 6y agoPut the solar panels at the poles.
- Melting_Harps 6y agoThat was the whole basis for the Mars direct mode of propellant creation, and to be honest should be the only expansion of Human based Nuclear technology. Elon is saying he's going to put football fields of Solar panel arrays on Mars according to Zubrin [1], as absurd as that sounds he probably will accomplish it given his track record how long it remains viable (dust storms on Mars can last months) is the real question, when in reality Nuclear technology should really only be used for these kind of purposes: high risk, limited option based energy creation. None of which apply to Earth, but do apply to Mars and I guess the Moon. I won't rant about how incredibly foolish the mission to the Moon is here, not least of which putting a significant nuclear generation station on something that orbits the Earth is, but suffice it to say it makes more sense then building another on the Planet when we have so many more options. 1: https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/02/mars-elon-musk-plan-to-settle-red-planet/ https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/02/mars-elon-musk-plan-t...
- JoeAltmaier 6y agoSolar gets lots of love. But when planet-based its down 50% of the time - at night. Not very useful for life support. I don't know why orbital solar isn't discussed more. Folks cite efficiency losses when transmitting to ground, but does it rise to 50% like ground-based?
- nthj 6y agoIt seems launch costs are the impeding factor right now. One approach to making it feasible would be to get good at asteroid mining. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space-based_solar_power https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space-based_solar_power
- Retric 6y agoI think you fundamentally misunderstand what’s needed. It’s more of a science fiction cliche that life support needs immense amounts of power. The earths life support is based on solar power and that has worked out just fine for humanity. Ideally life support should be as passive as possible, and using solar power is a great way to achieve that. PS: Orbital solar is an issue due to launch costs, and the fact most electricity is used in the daytime. Solar + battery is also getting very cheap.
- JoeAltmaier 6y agoNo; that was clearly just an an example. Understand that a colony on the Moon isn't there just as a proof of concept. Its there to do something, probably industrial. Running billion-dollar industrial processes only when the sun is shining, is clearly a downside.
- Retric 6y agoIf your talking scale that’s a question of economics. Batteries + solar are already cheaper than new nuclear power on Earth over 24 hours. For Mars the reduced sunlight is an issue, but nuclear also faces major issues without ready water and very low atmospheric pressure. Low ground temperatures allow you to dissipate heat, but construction costs would be dramatically higher. The moon is different due to extended day night cycles. Which also make it extremely unappealing for long term colonization. Trying build a reactor that still operates when ground temperatures hit 127 degrees Celsius is again very difficult. Out past Mars solar is a poor fit. But, without something like cheap fusion power it’s extremely unlikely giant colonies would be viable anyway.
- dmje 6y agoNot content with fucking up our world, humans set sail for others in order to spread the love there, too.
- robbiet480 6y agoThe actual RFI can be found at https://beta.sam.gov/opp/b92644af4767413c9e831e633c6e2888/view?keywords=%22Idaho%20National%20Laboratory%22&sort=-relevance&index=opp&is_active=true&page=1¬ice_type=r https://beta.sam.gov/opp/b92644af4767413c9e831e633c6e2888/vi...