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Fun related trivia: I just read Robert A. Heinlein's first "Heinlein juvenile" (i.e. young adult) novel Rocket Ship Galileo. It was published in 1947. The rock
by troymc 14y ago
Fun related trivia:
I just read Robert A. Heinlein's first "Heinlein juvenile" (i.e. young adult) novel Rocket Ship Galileo. It was published in 1947. The rocket ship's power plant was a nuclear reactor using... thorium.
- pjscott 14y agoProbably not the best choice for fuel, though. It takes around a month after capturing a neutron for thorium to become fissile, and if they just needed to get to the moon and back, a thorium breeder reactor isn't going to be too helpful with that. Highly enriched uranium is the way the NERVA guys went. If they needed long-term power for a moon base, of course, it might be another story.
- cpeterso 14y agoAbove [1], someone pointed out that a thorium reactor would produce gamma radiation that is highly penetrating and heavily ionizing. Probably not the "roommate" you want in the small confines of a spaceship. :) [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4913976 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4913976