China reveals nuclear lunar rover

China is planning to send a nuclear powered rover to the moon in 2012 on its first unmanned mission to our natural satellite. Several technology institutes across the country are competing to develop the vehicle, although there is no word on when the official selection will be made. In what seems to be a bid to get the edge on …

[Graham Newton]

"We want it to be better than the early US rovers"

It's like comparing a Ferrari (Apollo rover) to a JCB (Chinese rover). The Apollo rover didn't dig but went a lot faster so the Astronauts could dig further away.

[Anonymous Coward]

Nuclear Manace Falling Near You

I would want to know what kind of intial trajectory this Chinese Rocket will take when it is sent into space. Will the Rocket go over Japan?

What happens if there is an accident on Takeoff?

How do you self destruct a Nuclear Payload?

[Anonymous Coward]

Cuddle up to a nuke

There's a real benefit to radioisotope generators on lunar missions - they help keep the probe warm during the long (2 week) lunar nights when temperatures fall to about -170C.

The two Soviet Lunokhod rovers trundled around the Moon through a series of lunar days - 11 for Lunokhod 1, 5 for Lunokhod 2 - and they needed to be kept warm if there was any hope of waking them up come the lunar dawn.

During the day, the rovers were charged by solar panels, but as night fell, they'd close up their lids and rely on a chunk of polonium 210 - to keep the internal electronics snug and warm*.

Just to brighten up everyone's day; in 1969, the first attempt to launch a Lunokhod exploded 40 seconds after launch in a polonium-laced fireball.

* The effect of polonium 210 on dissident KGB officers is somewhat different.

[Ian Ferguson]

Not dangerous

To anyone scared: There's a difference between sending up a nuclear-powered rocket and sending up an inert nuclear reactor. The rover's reactor wouldn't actually be eating fuel and spewing power until (I presume) it lands on the moon, so there's no particular danger if the rocket blows up on the way through the atmosphere, other than dust from the fuel. It wouldn't explode like a nuclear bomb.

The only reason that I can tell why it hasn't been considered for the shuttle is that a returnable craft is inherently more dangerous if it's using a live reactor on it's way through the atmosphere, either way.

[Roland Korn]

Close but not quite .... nuclear space power.

Space vehicles that use nuclear power don't use reactors in the conventional sense that eveyone is generally familiar with. There is no boiler, turbines and generator coil or any othe moving parts.

The thing is pretty much a battery and is always running so there is no on/off switch per se. The basic design is a central core of some radionucleotide in the shape of a rod surrounded by a material to slow down the particles released by the radionucleotides natural decay. Within this matrix are alternating conductive plates, either as radiating outwards in a starburst pattern or a series of closely packed disks. These become the poles of your nuclear powered battery. More along the lines of a nuclear charged capacitor than a storage battery but you get my drift.

Since the format is pretty much a cannister, it can be reasonably hardened against catastrophe .... unfortunatelly such hardening costs weight/payload ... which is at a premium and cost $$$ ... guess which wins out?

[Nicholas Wright]

Nuclear....

Is it only me that worries should something go wrong and it starts leaking nuclear material on the moon/explodes?

Way to go human race - wreck a planetoid before we've even tried to habitate it.

[regadpellagru]

As Mad as M.Madman in a mad day at bonkersville

"China is planning to send a nuclear powered rover to the moon in 2012 on its first unmanned mission to our natural satellite."

So ... everyone can then relax a bit and forget those

complicated issues of global warming then, since this

bunch of morons will have, by then, rendered the whole

atmostphere brighter than it ever was at night, and

warmer than anything from current predictions .

And if we are lucky, they might even screw the Moon, so

remains only Mars to inhabitate !

Great.

[Remy Redert]

Nuclear indeed

Nicholas Wright, you might want to look up at the other comments for a bit and find that this was already explained. No matter what happens, that nuclear powerplant on the rover cannot explode. Similarly, since it is a solid piece of material, it can't leak and even if it did, the radiation released that way would be utterly unnoticeable compared to background radiation.

As for the issue of it explode on launch, it's not good, but compared to even a single nuclear test, it's hardly measurable. We could detonate hundreds of rovers on their way up the atmosphere and there still wouldn't be any problem. The only issue is for those directly in the rover's path while it is still at low altitudes, especially if it uses polonium or a similar extremely dangerous material.