Posted on 06/01/2020 8:55:23 AM PDT by BenLurkin
With NASA planning its next human mission to the moon in 2024, researchers are looking for options to power settlements on the lunar surface. According to a new article in Chemical & Engineering News, the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society, nuclear fission reactors have emerged as top candidates to generate electricity in space.
When it comes to powering an astronauts’ settlement, there are many factors to consider, writes correspondent Tien Nguyen in collaboration with ACS Central Science. The power source must be capable of being transported safely from Earth and of withstanding the harsh conditions of other worlds. Past space missions have used solar power as a scalable and renewable source of electricity, but the dark craters of the moon or the dusty surface of Mars may not offer enough light. The limited lifespans of battery and fuel cell technologies typically relegate them to backup options. Nuclear devices that run on decaying plutonium-238 have been used to power spacecraft since the 1960s, including Mars rovers and the space probes Voyager and Cassini, but they don’t provide enough energy for a settlement. In contrast, nuclear fission reactors that split uranium-235 atoms, which are used by power plants here on Earth, could provide a reliable power source for a small space settlement for several years, scientists estimate.
(Excerpt) Read more at scitechdaily.com ...
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https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1034314/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
Too bad The Professor has passed away.
Seriously, Pu238 would be the safest and easiest to setup.
It would give you enough power to setup solar panels and they are small and light weight.
Far too complicated.
You run into a problem or need spare parts, everyone would be dead by the time they got there.
Good, we don’t want to see the damming of the moon’s rivers for generating hydroelectric power, it would affect the spawning of the lunar salmon.
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Might mess up the green cheese harvest too.
Great. All we need are stinking hippie prostestors clogging up the moon
Every probe that goes beyond Mars orbit have all been powered by Pu238 RTG.
Small, simple and run for 50 years without interaction.
Not a lot of power but unlike a probe, you have plenty of place on the moon to put them.
They’ll pollute the Moon and Mars making them unfit for life! Think of the children!!!
You could add a small fusion reactor to get more bang for your buck.
Why not just use Windmills? There’s plenty of Solar Wind on the Moon.
Cool, thanks!
I just finished Armada by Ernest Cline, and it had a surprising moon connection to the 3rd Reich. Anything else would be too much of a spoiler, perhaps.
These will be used in one of the coldest environments known - dark areas of the Moon which reach -250C/-410F) - is that cold enough to cool a nuclear reactor for you? No need for oxygen
Didn’t you cover this in HS?
If it isn’t totally safe with written guarantee than its best not to do it - snowflakes unite!
No my high school didn’t cover nuclear power reactors in 1980
There you go - mine did in 1965. We even worked out how to make a nuclear bomb roughly. Modern education: sad.
Three to five 100Kw LTRs to start, with an N-2 power safety setup. Oakridge had a working test reactor fifty years ago. Use the tech, updated of course based on what we know now. There’s Thorium in the lunar soil. Probably enough to refuel there, if the extraction tech is sent along or created there.
Astronaut Settlement?
I didn’t realize the astronauts had unionized. What did they sue over?
LFTRs would solve so many problems...
“ Should look into Thorium based reactors.”
Uranium 233 reactors? They might not want the extra complication of a ‘breeder’ system involving Thorium.
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