3 ms·

Small nuclear reactors are not proven though and are quite a risky idea since nuclear benefits significantly from scale. If your goal is to produce something t

• pvaldes 4y ago
  The moon is being bombed routinely with space debris so technically is an interesting engineering problem. The same meteorites that create craters in the moon would fall over a nuclear plant so I assume that would need to be put in the face of the moon that is closer to Earth. Otherwise this would mean having several local areas of the moon contaminated and forbidden forever in a few years. Not wind, animals or water in the moon, so apart of the ejected dust, radioactivity should remain in the same place at least
  • evgen 4y ago
    Given the complete lack of shielding that we get from the magnetosphere and atmosphere I am guessing that a few kg of scattered enriched uranium is going to be background noise on the moon. The target is small, the moon is (relatively) big and we can bury the reactor; a meteor strike on the reactor is probably less of a concern than a similar strike on any habitat to which the reactor it meant to provide power. A recent Chinese probe has shown that lunar regolith is radioactive just from cosmic ray bombardment, so as a general rule I am guessing that future lunar operations will treat the entire lunar environment the same way we treat places like Chernobyl. Shield everything, watch your dosage and exposure, and do everything possible to prevent inhalation/ingestion of particles from the external environment.