Reckon you can put a nuclear reactor on the Moon? NASA's plans to put a nuclear reactor on the Moon have moved on – the agency has now put out a Request For Information (RFI) to gauge industry interest in the project. An RFI is not an invitation to bid for the work. Interested parties need to register their interest by 21 August, and only later, there's a chance that they …
I think the mass of the cabling would exceed that of a reactor.
Build a railway around the Moon (doesn't have to be the equator). Install photovoltaics beside the tracks. Large self powered flow cell batteries circumnavigating the Moon being charged and shunted off to users to exchange spent fluid.
Or an massive PV array orbiting the Moon beaming the power to the surface. Incidentally lunar-stationary orbits (apart from the Earth I suppose) don't exist so the power transmission couldn't be continuous unless a fleet of low lunar orbiting satellites LLOs(?) were deployed to beam power successively.
The main worry is that we get to the point of Space Karen launching one of his unplanned rapid disassembly vehicles bedecked with an equally dodgy reactor for the Moon and drops the whole bundle to rain catastrophe on the heads of rest of us.
Given Trumpty-Dumpty's recent wholesale removal of regulatory oversight and politicizing the administrations involved, this is an entirely conceivable disaster.
The main worry is that we get to the point of Space Karen launching one of his unplanned rapid disassembly vehicles bedecked with an equally dodgy reactor for the Moon and drops the whole bundle to rain catastrophe on the heads of rest of us.
If it helps, this isn't atrocious in the grand scheme of things, unless you happen to be standing under it. Even assuming complete dispersal, that's a few tons of uranium (hopefully, insoluble oxide) spread over a wide area. The real nasties from reactor accidents are the transuranics, which aren't present in standard, fresh, unused reactor fuel.
They're not directly equivalent but, very generally, lead is somewhat more toxic and hundreds of tons of that still enters the atmosphere every year from piston aviation engines.
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... at inventing yet another phony "space race", this time to bankrupt the gullible Chinese.
It probably won't work. They use a different kind of propaganda to subjugate the masses than the Russians did.
And yes, nuclear energy is unnecessary on the Moon. Go solar+batteries. Cheaper in the long run, and no single point of failure.
Putting a nuclear reactor on the moon seems well within the scope of current technology. Making a 100KW reactor work on the moon once it gets there seems a bit more challenging. We're talking a heat engine here. Where is the cool side going to dump the excess heat? Space? I'll take a pretty big radiator to dump 100KW to space I should think. And the radiator would need a sun shield? It'll be interesting to see what, if anything, they come up with.
Nuclear reactors produce high grade heat. Radiation shedding to ~2.7K of space is proportional to temperature, so radiating high grade heat is an easier problem than low grade heat like body heat. I can't remember the exact figures, but something like 600C or 800C radiates 15kw/m^2. You wouldn't need much area for the radiator of a 100kw reactor at that rate.
The reactor will be located on the south pole, where the sun never rises much above the horizon. A simple low wall around the reactor and its radiator (which could be piled up regolith since there's no wind to disturb it) would be sufficient to provide permanent shade. Don't even need a "doorway" for entry since the astronauts could easily leap over it. Though if you located where there's a crater rim or similar providing permanent shade of its own over part of the horizon you could have a break in the wall.
> Nuclear reactors produce high grade heat.
If we want them to. But for safety and longevity we can tune them to very low heat.
And heat engines work by capturing heat as it flows from hot to cool. For efficiency, the cooler the better. On earth high efficiency may not be a priority. In space with million $ lift costs you gotta make thje most of what you lift.
Off the top of my head I would imagine they might be robust enough to throw at the Moon but I have no idea how much they weigh (mass) or the volume they occupy.
Cooling any conventional nuclear reactor on the Moon might a major challenge. Definite lack of cooling water or of air for convection.
The thorium molten salt reactor technology might be a more tractable option.
Solar photovoltaic arrays on both sides of the Moon and an interconnecting grid (with buried suoerconducting cables?) might be a better long term choice.
Solar photovoltaic arrays on both sides of the Moon and an interconnecting grid (with buried suoerconducting cables?) might be a better long term choice.
Sure. So lob enough solar panels at the Moon. Then 11,000km of cable. Then lay and bury that cable. Simples. Kinda the same issue with solar + batteries given the mass of batteries needed to be safe. Plus the space needed for battery farm, and keeping those cool so they don't go all Tesla on the moon base. Plus if we can build an SMR (Super Moon Reactor) then it's scaleable. Hopefully.
Solar photovoltaic arrays on both sides of the Moon and an interconnecting grid (with buried suoerconducting cables?) might be a better long term choice
Wow talking about overengineered solutions!
The reason why there is an (apparent) rush to "claim" some areas of the moon's south pole is because 1) it is believed there is significant quantities of water ice in some of the permanently shaded craters and 2) there may be some places on crater rims that are in permanent sunlight.
But even if it turns out there isn't a single spot where the sun always shines, you will have many cases of two places located under a kilometer apart where one will always (and two will often) be under direct sunlight. No need for superconducting cable running halfway around the moon. A couple regular cables that are probably shorter than the one going from your local substation to the transformer serving your house going from the panels to the base will be just fine.
That's clearly the better solution, easier to maintain than a nuclear reactor. MUCH easier to expand. No hazards during launch, operation, or decommissioning. The reason we want a nuke on the moon has nothing to do with it being the best solution. Almost everyone would agree it is not. It is because it provides you a loophole in the Moon Treaty from the 60s that otherwise prevents countries from claiming territory on the moon. Because installing a nuclear reactor lets you "claim" territory via its exclusion zone.
The problem isn't building and operating a reactor on the moon, it's the RISK of contaminating our planet when launch vehicles carrying nuclear material crash or explode in atmosphere.
They would have to find a source of fissionable materials elsewhere in the solar system, and build enrichment facilities. I don't think anyone is going to approve sending nuclear materials by chemically propelled rocket launch (our current technology).
The reactor is to required to produce at least 100kW and have a mass of up to 15 tons.
15 tons is a lot to land on the moon, I think it's more than anyone has ever landed in a controlled manner before.
Is there any reason why it has to be one reactor, rather than a cluster of smaller, lighter weight reactors? (e.g. 5 x 20kW, say). That might be an easier proposition to land and provide some margin for moonbase power continuity. One reactor failing in a cluster might not be such a disaster as your single big reactor failing.
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