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But do you have the necessary infrastructure to maintain a nuclear reactor on Mars? As the article points out, the device required significant manpower, had re
by qayxc 5y ago
But do you have the necessary infrastructure to maintain a nuclear reactor on Mars?
As the article points out, the device required significant manpower, had reliability issues and wasn't cost effective.
While it'd be relatively simple to build wind power locally once infrastructure is in place, the same cannot be said for nuclear power on Mars.
Autonomy and self-reliance are critical factors for outposts on Mars - a point that cannot be overstated.
- fastball 5y agoWe've made a lot of improvements to nuclear reactor design since the 60s, and potentially we'll have working fusion by the time we have a colony on Mars, which would probably be the best solution (can easily get H from water and then would have He which is useful). I can't imagine a viable self-sufficient Mars colony that doesn't involve a lot of manpower anyway (I'm talking thousands of people).
- qayxc 5y agoWell a working fusion reactor would render any current power source obsolete anyway. I wasn't necessarily thinking about complete self-sufficiency, just the fact that it might take up to 2½ years to get replacement parts.
- fastball 5y agoRight but without complete self-sufficiency that applies to any power generation method. The only viable solution is to have enough raw material and redundancy on Mars that you can recycle things if something fails. e.g. have multiple redundant reactors, if one breaks you fix it, if it can't be fixed you dismantle it and start using the parts to build a new one, taking parts from other things when necessary and using parts you can't use for other things. Basically there needs to be enough "stuff" on Mars that you can use stuff to make other stuff in perpetuity. To my mind that would require enough diversity of equipment that you'd want on the order of 1000 / 10k people. And of course Mars is not a totally barren world – another big part of the solution is to build things with materials that can be gathered on Mars.
- ClumsyPilot 5y agoWe have since deployed many nuclear reactors in space, with totally different reliability, so those should be used as reference. They can be packed on a rocket, launched, turned on and work for years unattended ( they powered societ radar satellites) Cost is dominated by weight in space, and a large wind turbine needs hundreds to thousands of tons of concrete for foundations - are those going to be brought from Earth? Can you make concrete on Mars?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- petre 5y agoPray that the rocket doesn't blow up spreading nuclear fuel all over the place. Here is a Soviet "success story" involving a nuclear reactor on a sat. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosmos_954 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosmos_954 Concrete would need cement made with limestone and massive amounts of heat and water which is scrace on Mars.
- ClumsyPilot 5y agoNuclear fuel that has never been "fired up" in a reactor is almost hamless - its just uranium. You could have it under your bed and you'd be fine, just don't eat it. In this case the reactor would only be started once it arrives on mars.
- petre 5y agoI know, that's why I did not say radioactive waste.