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Nukes in space offer myriad opportunities not practical on Earth. Lofting them directly from Earth is a tricky matter. I believe it could be done safely, but I

Nukes in space offer myriad opportunities not practical on Earth. Lofting them directly from Earth is a tricky matter. I believe it could be done safely, but I know many never will. On Titan, all you need is a naked pile in a gore-tex sleeve with a wind turbine at the top, catching convection. Or maybe plunge it into a methane sea and drive a wind turbine from the boil-off. No need for cooling. On orbit or on an airless body, a naked pile at the end of a long boom can be allowed to heat to a fierce glow. Photovoltaics ranged around it, at a distance, produce power directly. Again, no need for cooling.

m4rtink 4y ago
Indeed! That's why even though renewables now do often make more sense than nuclear plants, I'm worried about all the know how and industrial base possibly being lost, as that might slow us down as we move further into space. BTW, there is a recently released grand-strategy game called Terra Invicta that gets it right - the same solar panel module that gives you 40 power units in LEO (or 260 at Mercury!) will produce just 3 power units at Ceres. So its all fission, followed by various fusion designs for any stations further from the sun than Earth/Luna & for basically all the ships. As for launching reactors into space - I think that at least the fuel elements will have to be launched for quite a while, the industrial base required for nuclear fuel refining and fuel assembly fabrication is just too massive for early deployment space-side. Lot of other stuff - dirt for shielding, coolant, possibly even some primitive radiators - could likely be made in space relatively quickly. Still, nuclear fuel that has not yet been through a reactor is just a bunch of toxic heavy metal - not ideal if it burns up, but possibly quite a bit better than plutonium from an RTG. Also being dense and quite small in volume, it could very well be shipped in a big ball of ablative shielding, just in case.
- moloch-hai 4y ago
  Loss of knowhow for terrestrial plant construction and operation doesn't worry me, because conditions and designs for uses in space are completely different. You are better off with people who are completely free of all the assumptions embodied in old designs.

m4rtink 4y ago

Indeed! That's why even though renewables now do often make more sense than nuclear plants, I'm worried about all the know how and industrial base possibly being lost, as that might slow us down as we move further into space. BTW, there is a recently released grand-strategy game called Terra Invicta that gets it right - the same solar panel module that gives you 40 power units in LEO (or 260 at Mercury!) will produce just 3 power units at Ceres. So its all fission, followed by various fusion designs for any stations further from the sun than Earth/Luna & for basically all the ships. As for launching reactors into space - I think that at least the fuel elements will have to be launched for quite a while, the industrial base required for nuclear fuel refining and fuel assembly fabrication is just too massive for early deployment space-side. Lot of other stuff - dirt for shielding, coolant, possibly even some primitive radiators - could likely be made in space relatively quickly. Still, nuclear fuel that has not yet been through a reactor is just a bunch of toxic heavy metal - not ideal if it burns up, but possibly quite a bit better than plutonium from an RTG. Also being dense and quite small in volume, it could very well be shipped in a big ball of ablative shielding, just in case.

moloch-hai 4y ago
Loss of knowhow for terrestrial plant construction and operation doesn't worry me, because conditions and designs for uses in space are completely different. You are better off with people who are completely free of all the assumptions embodied in old designs.