5 ms·

So, nuclear then.

• ncphil 5y ago
  Yeah. Nuclear may not make sense here on Earth -- even Antarctica -- where the environmental and human health consequences are practically unavoidable (especially when implemented by the lowest bidder), but space outside of LEO is another matter. NASA is in fact looking at it. https://cen.acs.org/energy/nuclear-power/NASA-thinks-nuclear-reactors-supply/98/i19 https://cen.acs.org/energy/nuclear-power/NASA-thinks-nuclear.... Although the idea of migrating researchers to a sunlit base when night falls at their primary base has potential, it's probably going to be more practical to stand up a whopping big RTG or full-on fission reactor a distance off from the habitats. Space borne fission plants are going to be necessary anyway if we're ever going to send people to the outer solar system (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune). We might as well learn how to make them work on the Moon ("It's a damned research project!").
  • devoutsalsa 5y ago
    Nuclear is basic the safest (and climate change friendly) form of power generation am we have. Isn’t it?
    • ncmncm 5y ago
      On Earth's surface? No. But various forms make sense elsewhere.
  • ncmncm 5y ago
    A smallish chunk of Strontium-90 would safely power quite a lot of moonbase for years, as the Soviets did their remote lighthouses. Strontium-90 is the ideal radionucleide; emitting negligible gamma rays or neutrons, it just sits producing heat. For power in the cloudtops of Venus, Titan, Saturn, Uranus, or Neptune, a full-scale nuclear reactor is as simple as a naked atomic pile hanging near the bottom of a big fabric tube with a wind turbine at the top, supported by a balloon. All the radiative output goes into heating the air around the pile, which rises and drives the wind turbine, which is the only moving part. On the gas giants, it would have to be supported by a hot-air balloon, because the atmosphere is hydrogen. On all four planets, surprisingly, gravity is very close to Earth-normal. (On Titan it is rather less.) Orbital velocity at the gas giants is much higher, though, so as comfortable as it might be there, it's hard to get home from them.
• edgyquant 5y ago
  It’s both hilarious and sad that we don’t talk about nuclear because other countries will think we’re building bombs. I definitely think the space treaty has to go and be replaced by a reasonable treaty that allows militarization of space. Right now it’s akin to nobody building planes that can Cary more than a single person (and no cargo) because they know it gives the other party an advantage
  • MichaelZuo 5y ago
    You want to allow every nation to be able to militarize space? Since that’s what a renegotiated UN treaty implies.
    • edgyquant 5y ago
      Yes. We are only putting it off at the moment and it’s hampering progress. If we could put nukes in space it would remove the stigma of using nuclear energy. And other countries could build their defenses so they aren’t as worried. We should build a more realistic treaty that doesn’t hamper progress.
      • MichaelZuo 5y ago
        Well I mean you do live up to your username but you surely understand that there could be second and higher order effects of such a change in policy and geopolitics? And that these effects could be so great as to overwhelm whatever merits and demerits the first order effects obtain? Although positive and productive effects may accrue it seems highly unlikely when all things are considered that they would outweigh the negative effects and externalities.
  • gpm 5y ago
    You're creating an imaginary strawman and arguing against it here. The space treaty does not ban nuclear power, only nuclear weapons. Nuclear power is just for the most part not worth it, and in the rare cases where it has been worth it, we've used it, in the form of RTGs because that's the only form of nuclear that has ever made sense for any space mission we've launched. Nuclear power is talked about a ton in the space community, with everything from "here's a way we could potentially power spacecraft to bases" to "hey, maybe we could build a nuclear powered rocket engine and get much better mass ratios when we send things to mars".
• inglor_cz 5y ago
  The tricky part about nuclear in space is that you either manufacture the fuel somewhere off Earth too, or you need to launch it from Earth, with a non-zero chance of the rocket failing and tons of highly radioactive fuel contaminating the atmosphere. I would probably risk that on a rocket that proved to be reliable enough, say, 500 launches in a row without a single failure.
  • Gatsky 5y ago
    In practice you wouldn’t send a giant amount of fissile material in one shipment from the earth’s surface, you would put small amounts up at a time. Multiple trips to the moon would be needed anyway.
    • inglor_cz 5y ago
      That reduces the maximal extent of the problem if something goes amiss, but increases the total risk of at least one launch going amiss. In practice, if something like that happened, environmental organizations would lobby hard to put a permanent stop on launching radioactive fuel from Earth, regardless of the actual extent of the contamination.
• kolinko 5y ago
  Won’t cooling be an issue? On earth you need a ton of water to cool nuclear