[Lokibob]

We built small reactors in the early 60’s. Read about my brush with one in my FRprofile titled “Greenland”.

.....Bob

[geopyg]

ping to self to read your story. Out at the Idaho National Labs there is a prototype of a nuke aircraft engine as I recall.

[HAL9000]

I read “Greenland”, thanks for writing about your adventures there.

[az_gila]

...and NASA deployed several to the moon as part of the Apollo Lunar Surface Experiment Package (ALSEP). Thermocouples heated by radiation source. One entered the Pacific as part of the ill-fated Apollo 13...

From a NASA web site...

Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (RTG)

The SNAP-27 model RTG produced the power to run the ALSEP operations. The generator consisted of a 46 cm high central cylinder and eight radiating rectangular fins with a total tip-to-tip diameter of 40 cm. The central cylinder had a thinner concentric inner cylinder inside, and the two cylinders were attached along their surfaces by 442 spring-loaded lead-telluride thermoelectric couples mounted radially along the length of the cylinders. The generator assembly had a total mass of 17 kg. The power source was an approximately 4 kg fuel capsule in the shape of a long rod which contained plutonium-238 and was placed in the inner cylinder of the RTG by the astronauts on deployment. Plutonium-238 decays with a half-life of 89.6 years and produces heat. This heat would conduct from the inner cylinder to the outer via the thermocouples which would convert the heat directly to electrical power. Excess heat on the outer cylinder would be radiated to space by the fins. The RTG produced approximately 70 W DC at 16 V. (63.5 W after one year.) The electricity was routed through a cable to a power conditioning unit and a power distribution unit in the central station to supply the correct voltage and power to each instrument.

[jwh_Denver]

ROFLMFAO! Best damn humor I’ve read in a long time. You ought to write a book. Thanks. Now just how am I supposed to sleep with my sides aching? Huh?

[tcostell]

Yeah doesn’t the Navy have a reactor design that’s only about 20 x 15 x 40? I may be wrong about the precise dimensions, but the thing I saw fit pretty handily on the back of a flat bed tractor trailer.Of course that might not have been the whole thing, (maybe it was in two or ten different parts and assembled later, but the story I was given at the time was that it was for powering a nuclear frigate.

[Rb ver. 2.0]

Great read about your experience in Greenland. There were no photos displayed?

[longtermmemmory]

read you stories

thanks for writing them.

(thought the green M&M stunt was neat)