
Nuclear Reactor for Mars Outpost Could Be Ready to Fly by 2022 - chr1
https://www.space.com/nuclear-reactor-for-mars-outpost-2022.html
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hairytrog
Cost estimate:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14701774](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14701774)

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api
From what I've seen nuclear is clearly the best option at first. Once there
are enough people you could get an industrial infrastructure capable of making
batteries and solar PV on Mars, negating the transport cost factor.

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LinuxBender
My next question would be, if we have a reactor we can bring there, do we have
an atmospheric or other type of processor that the reactor could power to
convert martian air into something closer to earth air?

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criddell
Even if you could generate Earth air on Mars, how would you get Mars to hold
on to it?

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gpm
Mars doesn't lose atmosphere fast enough to matter on the timescale of the
expected lifetime of the human species as a whole.

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stcredzero
Science fiction plot: We figure out that the signs of water on Mars are
actually evidence of past alien terraforming. (Xenoforming?)

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The_rationalist
It's such a shame that nuclear research stopped in 80s.... What are we waiting
for to fund nuclear powered cargos? I've always dreamt of nuclear powered cars
but believed that nuclear reactors were necessarily too big.

This experimental reactor from NASA + DOE is far smaller than fossil motors!
(not accounting the cooling part) What could be the expected price of kilo
reactors? Why would they cost? Fuel cost nothing. Autonomous. Very small so
few material costs. Can it be created at scale (fordism-like) ? Can anybody on
internet estimate an optimistic yet realistic cost? Could this revolutionize
electric cars?

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madez
Nuclear reactors in cars are a bad idea. Even if they can be built small and
never needed refueling, cars get destroyed in all imaginable ways all the
time, so the nuclear pollution would need to be expected to be released often.
Also, we don't have a solution for the contaminated waste that millions of
nuclear powered cars would produce.

We can satisfy our power needs from renewable sources with existing technology
to competitive prices.

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The_rationalist
such predictable answers... The same schema repeat over and over. Let me be
clear, what you say is mostly _not_ wrong, but misleading. Your comment
understate the importance, the necessity of quantification.

"never needed refueling" Wouldn't that be fascinating?

"cars get destroyed in all imaginable ways all the time" Right. "so the
nuclear pollution would need to be expected to be released often" Yes _BUT_
can we have a little bit of intellectual riguor and admit that we must
quantify how much dangerous that would be. Let's keep in mind that a nuclear
car having an accident != a new chernobyl. Being at most a kilowatt reactor
make it order of magnitude less radioactive. I _Guess_ (wishful thinking
maybe) that the radiations would be far less dangerous and more local than is
explosion and fire from current car crashs. But I want a nuclear expert to
show me a calculus that would show if the dangerosity is negligible or higher
(how much) than current crashs. The thing is, such experts will not read this
thread and even if there were a scientific consensus on whether it's probably
safer, democracy would be order of magnitudes too dumb / ignorant to vote for
it. BTW the numbers of death due to C02 emissions should be taken into account
too.

"we don't have a solution for the contaminated waste that millions of nuclear
powered cars would produce." How do you know that? There's 0 funding to
experiment solutions in the first place. But I expect it to be trivial.
Current wastes are trivially contained in safe places. They do not need
maintenance. Do you know how much a nuclear reactor produce waste per year? I
did, I don't remember the exact number, but it was like a few kilos at most.
So for a micro reactor in a car it should be a few grams at most. Which should
be recuperated at the end of life of the car (if not negligible).

I've not even talked about nuclear advances such as reusing the wastes or
provably safe reactors which necessarily auto shutdown by design. This already
exists, but democratize very slowly due to lack of funding because of
irrational politics driven by hysterical people fear (did you know that
nuclear was both cleaner than solar AND safer (yes solar killed more people
statistically).

"We can satisfy our power needs from renewable sources with existing
technology to competitive prices." Wishfull thinking? Firstly solar does not
scales well, is not autosuffisant, it fascinatingly less efficient than
nuclear (did you remark that solar is indirectly catching the output of a
_nuclear_ (fusion) energy AKA the sun?) But the fact is, electric cars are a
lie. They will drive _no pun intended_ a penury in Lithium which is necessary
for efficient batteries which will be dramatic. Nuclear cars would not need
batteries or only small batteries.

Thanks for reading.

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jasonwatkinspdx
You don't need a nuclear expert, just around a high school physics class
understanding of what's going on.

From [https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-
sheets/r...](https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-
sheets/radwaste.html#waste)

> High-level wastes are hazardous because they produce fatal radiation doses
> during short periods of direct exposure. For example, 10 years after removal
> from a reactor, the surface dose rate for a typical spent fuel assembly
> exceeds 10,000 rem/hour – far greater than the fatal whole-body dose for
> humans of about 500 rem received all at once.

And that's for fuel that's been run in commercial reactors, which is commonly
only 5% enriched. The NASA reactor uses 90% enriched fuel.

Once that thing is turned on it will become deadly for centuries. Any breach
of containment during a car crash would be instantly lethal for a considerable
distance. Using a robot to extract the core from the wreck and place it in new
containment would be a very non trivial task taking days if not weeks.

The idea of putting a kilopower reactor in a car is a total non starter, and
not because people lack 'rationality' or aren't as smart as you think you are.

