
U.S. eyes building nuclear power plants on the moon, Mars - apsec112
https://time.com/5871667/nuclear-power-plant-moon/
======
Robotbeat
The headline is potentially misleading. There are already "nuclear power
plants" based on radioisotope decay of Pu238 on Mars (and old ones on the
Moon) as well as beyond, such as Voyager 1, 2, and New Horizons (all of which
are still operating). They're called RTGs.

In order to get approval to launch nuclear material, the launch vehicle must
be nuclear-rated (like human-rating, it ensures safety). With the recent
retirement of the Delta II, only the Atlas V is currently nuclear-rated, but
eventually others may be. Additionally, the fuel is encased in boxes designed
to withstand launch failure and impact into the ocean without releasing the
contents.

In the case of RTGs, the fuel is always releasing heat and is always
radioactive. For fission reactors, the fuel is relatively inert and non-
radioactive until it is turned on.

~~~
BurningFrog
I imagine* an RTG has a well enough encased piece of radioactive metal that
will survive falling through the atmosphere without disintegrating.

Which makes the main danger that the Plutonium may get into the wrong hands.

* _Happy to learn if that 's wrong :)_

~~~
Teknoman117
The plutonium in an RTG is the wrong type from a weapons perspective.

The casing on RTGs have typically been designed to survive reentry. One
example is Nimbus B - the rocket failed late in flight. The RTG was recovered
from the ocean, refurbished, and flown again on Nimbus 3.

~~~
mr_toad
> The plutonium in an RTG is the wrong type from a weapons perspective.

You could potentially make a dirty bomb out of one. Just a conventional
warhead that sprays radioactive fallout.

------
tromp
> The reactor must be able to generate an uninterrupted electricity output of
> at least 10 kilowatts. The average U.S. residential home, according to the
> U.S. Energy Information Administration, uses about 11,000 kilowatt-hours per
> year.

Would be more helpful to express that as 11000/365/24 = 1.256 kilowatt, so you
understand that the reactor could only power 8 U.S. homes.

Btw, what are non-residential homes?

~~~
gspr
I've always found the use of kWh/year so absurd. I mean Wh is kinda weird as a
unit for energy, but this is just plain asburd.

~~~
bufferoverflow
Wh is directly equivalent to joules. It makes perfect sense as a unit of
energy.

1 Wh = 3600 joules

~~~
ginko
That's the point though. Just refer to it in joules.

~~~
lukeschlather
It's kind of like radians vs. degrees. Degrees seem ridiculous if you're doing
trig, but working with irrational fractions of pi is ridiculous if you're
trying to measure with a protractor. If you need to convert to radians to do
some trig (and let's be honest you usually don't) you are going to end up
converting something like degrees that are marked on the protractor anyway.

~~~
thaumasiotes
> Degrees seem ridiculous if you're doing trig

Degrees are ridiculous if you're doing calculus. They don't really pose any
problems if you're doing trig.

> but working with irrational fractions of pi is ridiculous if you're trying
> to measure with a protractor.

Sure, that's true, but that's only because irrational numbers are by
definition infinitely precise. It's no more difficult to use a protractor
labeled in increments of 0.02 radians than one labeled in increments of one
degree.

~~~
rrrrrrrrrrrryan
360 is evenly divisible by 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 12, 15, and 20.

0.02 radians would absolutely be a ridiculous unit of measurement if you were
a carpenter or draftsman in the age before computing.

~~~
thaumasiotes
> 360 is evenly divisible by 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 12, 15, and 20.

But if you're trying to _measure_ an angle, this is totally irrelevant. The
angle is whatever it is.

------
d_burfoot
I think the first step towards large scale human activity in space is the
construction of substantial industrial facilities on the moon. The central
advantage of such facilities is that it will be much much cheaper to launch
material into space from the moon, because it has lower gravity and less
atmosphere. When those facilities are fully operational, we'll be able to send
large numbers of vehicles into space, including big residential ships where
lots of people could live for extended periods of time. It's not clear to me
why it would be better to live on Mars (or some other planet/moon) than on a
well-designed spaceship.

~~~
onion2k
_The central advantage of such facilities is that it will be much much cheaper
to launch material into space from the moon..._

Unless you're making things out of stuff that's already on the moon you'd have
to get the raw material from Earth to the Moon, and then from the Moon to
where you want it in space. There might well be advantages to doing that, raw
materials can be fired in to space at higher Gs than manufactured parts using
a railgun for example, but the cost of building a Moon factory is likely to
mean the cost of building on the Moon is still _much_ higher for a long time.

~~~
antepodius
The point is explicitly to use materials from the moon.

~~~
valuearb
Those materials aren’t on the moon.

~~~
misanthropian00
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_resources](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_resources)

Seems to have plenty of iron and titanium and aluminum, but we have spent
almost no time there so we don't really know. Well when I say 'we' haven't
spent much time there I don't mean to speak for you. You may in fact have been
born there for all I know. But the rest of us need to do more research I think
before reaching any such conclusion. Or maybe we could just ask you.

~~~
valuearb
Ok, tell me how many millions of tons of equipment and how many gigawatts of
power we will need to process out large quantities of these resources from
razor sharp sand, and how many trillions of dollars it will cost to build it
on the moon?

We can process gold out of seawater, so why do we dig far into the earth to
find veins of gold?

------
siberianbear
It makes sense. Voyager I was powered with nuclear energy.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_1#Power](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_1#Power)

~~~
IAmEveryone
It makes no sense. Curiosity was powered with solar cells.

The totality of Voyager’s scientific output is... low. Like most space
exploration. A nuclear accident that distributes enriched plutonium as fine
particles throughout the atmosphere would cause thousands of lives if the
generally accepted theory of the harms of radiation (linear with exposure) are
correct.

~~~
bhhaskin
Curiosity is powered by an RTG and has no solar cells. Spirit and Opportunity
where solar powered, but where expected to only operate 90 days due to dust
build up on the solar cells. Solar pretty much doesn't make any sense on the
moon or Mars due to the environments.

~~~
azernik
A caveat - solar works on the Moon in certain circumstances (polar locations
with sunlight most of the time), and on Mars with a bit of maintenance (Spirit
and Opportunity lasted much longer than expected because of wind cleaning dust
off the panels).

But yes, to your general point, nuclear power has serious advantages.

------
magic5227
Stupid question, but if it's only 10kw, why not use solar + batteries?

Certainly should weigh and cost less "the reactor cannot weigh more than 7,700
pounds..."

~~~
cbanek
At least on the surface of the moon, you're going to be in darkness for 14
days every 28. This not only means you won't be generating solar power, but
your battery efficiency will probably also take a hit due to the cold
temperatures (not to mention, you'll have to heat things too). So you'd have
to have enough batteries for 14 days.

~~~
DarthGhandi
There's small areas at the poles which are called peaks of eternal light, but
for the most part you are entirely correct.

I find those pushing solar on Mars to be more perplexing, for humans to go
there we are going to need nuclear, there's simply no way around this.

Many have an understandable aversion to nuclear but for anything on other
bodies the alternatives can't compete.

~~~
IAmEveryone
We shouldn’t ruin Planet A in our attempt to switch over to Plan B.

The amount of geoengineering needed to make Mars hospitable would solve all
environmental problems on earth five times over.

~~~
subjectsigma
If you try a terraforming experiment on Mars and it fails, nobody's
life/house/country/etc is ruined, which isn't true of geoengineering on Earth.
I agree with the sentiment that there really is no Plan B to fixing climate
change but that doesn't mean the goals of space colonization and fixing
climate change are contrary.

~~~
imhoguy
Only if the entire process is self-sufficient. For now we are burning precious
Earth resources to do anthing in space.

~~~
giantrobot
Precious? The primary elements "wasted" in space exploration are aluminum,
silicon, hydrogen, and oxygen. All of those things Earth is just lousy with.
Even launching a rocket a day wouldn't put any sort of dent in the
availability of any of those elements. A rocket a day also wouldn't
meaningfully add to levels of harmful pollution. The Earth is _really big_. It
has lots of pretty much everything.

Doing stuff in space is _expensive_ in an economic sense but it's not really
all that resource intensive. Most of the cost is paying people to design,
test, fabricate, and operate the hardware.

~~~
imhoguy
Ok, but to put a rocket in space you need a surrounding economy on a specific
technological level which is costly resourcewise. Could SpaceX or NASA happen
in e.g. Congo, Nepal or Papua New Guinea alone?

~~~
jjk166
Well okay, we can stop exploring space when we dismantle the entire
industrialized world.

------
henearkr
I'm surprised that nobody is commenting on the true exciting possibility left
over: to directly mine (then use) uranium from Mars. Completely feasible, and
completely sustainable. That would be a huge energy resource to develop Mars.

~~~
ginko
> Completely feasible, and completely sustainable.

Setting up the facilities to mine, process and purify uranium on another
planet does seem like a major technical challenge to me.

~~~
iso1210
Benefits seem minimal too - Uranium is high density.

Creating water, oxygen, even rocket fuel, in situ makes perfect sense.

Only once you have a nearly self-sustaining group of colonies would you need
to worry about insourcing fuel supply - and by then there may be better
solutions to generate power (thorium, fusion, space based solar, etc)

------
bawana
Granted a solar array ON the moon is not going to work half the time. But how
about a solar array on a satellite around the moon? It would be cheaper to
deploy. Already exists. 10 kw can be generated by an array the size of a small
rooftop. Getting the power to the moon is the remaining engineering challenge.
And learning how to do this would have tremendous benefits for the exploration
of space in general. Although current tech using masers exists, I cannot
imagine why we could not use recently developed high frequency lasers to boil
water on the moon to run a steam turbine. (Which we would need to get from a
comet). Besides the obvious steampunk attraction of a steam engine on the
moon, the presence of a large reservoir of heat energy at a stable temperature
could facilitate the temperature regulation of a nearby colony. And the
constant supply of energy could drive ion engines that use the dust of the
moon as a reaction mass making trips to lunar orbit free.

I just don’t like the idea of concentrated points of failure that are easy to
subvert into weapons like a dirty bomb. We need to be cognizant of human’s
ability to turn even the best invention to evil when someone gets disgruntled.
Failure modes need to be assessed for any technology going forward and must
include intentionally engineered ‘successful’ attempts at causing failure. If
the internet were designed to thwart the dark side of humanity, we might still
have the beautiful thing that existed when the internet was first created: a
channel for communication free of spam, advertising, spying, but that’s
another rant. If we kept commerce OFF the net, it might still be a place where
humans could enjoy the benefits of fellowship. Sorry I couldn’t help myself.

~~~
timbit42
Put the solar panels at the poles.

------
baron816
I really don't get the rush to try to travel to/colonize Mars. Mars is a
really awful place for humans to live or visit, and it would be incredibly
expensive to try.

Why not wait 50-100 years when we have safe, compact fusion reactors, have
fast enough engines to reach Mars in under a month, and have an economic
imperative to harvest the asteroid belt? We gain nothing meaningful now--we're
just fulfilling the fantasy of some middle aged men.

~~~
catmanjan
Replace mars with America, and fusion reactors with frigates and you'll
realise how silly this sounds

~~~
asah
America was/is _extremely_ fertile, requires nothing special to settle and is
only six weeks away. There's breathable air, fresh water, trees, arable land,
etc.

Mars is far more distant and hostile.

~~~
StillBored
I think you simplify the reality of the situation. European colonies in the
Americas overwhelmingly failed for centuries, and the ones that eventually
succeeded were very fragile for a long time. Starting with the Norse
settlements, and going until the English/French/Spanish started pouring
massive resources into military and colony aid in order to control territories
in America.

The people in those colonies died very quickly either from violence,
starvation or just malnutrition. It turns out that European agricultural
knowledge either didn't work, or wasn't considered an important mix in many of
the colonies. The plant life was diffrent enough that even living off the land
wasn't possible because people were just as likely to poison themselves with
sumac/whatever as get lucky and find something edible. The results were a lot
of failed crops, and starving settlers only kept alive with frequent resupply
missions from Europe and the occasional trade with native peoples. The latter
of which, turned bloody more frequently then we are willing to admit.

So, while they could breath the air, the difficulties and lack of knowledge
were much the same as any mars colony we might try and start. Likely the
results will be the same too. It will take hundreds of years of failures and
people dying before the problem is understood well enough and the
political/etc focus shifts sufficiently that one of them eventually succeeds.
The results will likely be much the same, a vast increase in knowledge, not
just for the colonists, but for those that remain. But instead of new foods,
spices, gold and trading partners, there will be technology gains pushed
forward in ways we cant imagine.

For starters, think of the environmental and biological understandings
required to make life on mars long term sustainable that we don't currently
have.

~~~
asah
The native Americans were proof-by- example that they were habitable by
humans.

------
tectonic
I fell down a Wikipedia Hole deep into the history of nuclear reactors in
space. There are many radioisotope heater units (RHUs) in space, such as those
used by Chang'e 4 to survive the cold lunar nights, and radioisotope
thermoelectric generators (RTGs), such as the MHW-RTGs used by the Voyagers,
the GPHS-RTGs used by Cassini and New Horizons, and the MMRTGs used by
Curiosity and Perseverance. (An RTG using 241Am has been proposed for an
interstellar mission, as it’s 432 year half-life could provide 500+ years of
power [1].) The only nuclear fission reactor launched by the US, and the
world’s first, was SNAP 10-A, a 235U - Zirconium hydride reactor with a
thermal power output of 30 kW and sodium-potassium (NaK) coolant. It was
launched in 1965, stopped working after only 43 days, and has undergone 7
“anomalous events” in which nearly 50 trackable pieces have been seen shedding
from the parent body. It should stay in orbit for 3000 years unless it breaks
up further. The remaining 30 or so known launched fission reactors were in
Soviet RORSATs: nuclear-powered, ocean-surveillance, active radar satellites
in LEO that required periodic boosts to prevent reentry. They were designed to
launch their enriched 235U reactors into a high orbit at the end of their
operational lives, but this didn’t always happen. (Those high orbits will last
300-1000 years, but the nuclear fuel has a half-life of 70,000 years… so
future generations may not think highly of us.) In 1978, the Cosmos 954 RORSAT
malfunctioned, reentered, and broke apart over northern Canada with the
reactor attached, scattering radioactive debris over a 800 km long region and
increasing awareness of the challenges around space debris— the USSR
eventually paid $3 million in cleanup liability, about a ⅕ of the true cost.
Other satellites have also broken up and spread radioactive debris, including
the US’s Transit 5BN3 (carried a SNAP RTG) and the USSR’s Cosmos 1402 RORSAT,
or have leaked radioactive coolant in orbit, such as the higher power and
higher orbit Kosmos 1818 and Kosmos 1867 RORSATs, which both seem to have
leaked trails of metallic NaK coolant. The usefulness of the Gamma Ray
Spectrometer on NASA’s SolarMax mission was reduced by anomalous gamma ray
emissions from these higher reactors. Collisional breakups among the ~30
reactors in orbit are likely over the next few hundred years [2]. Near future
use of nuclear power in space may include NASA’s Kilopower reactor and
Advanced Stirling Radioisotope Generator, and potentially even nuclear
rockets. Related: This 158 page NASA PDF [3] contains a delightfully detailed
history of space debris and was a primary source for this writeup.

[1]
[http://www.niac.usra.edu/files/library/meetings/misc/trieste...](http://www.niac.usra.edu/files/library/meetings/misc/trieste_may02_mtg/McNutt_Ralph.pdf)
[2]
[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0273117791...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/027311779190540Z)
[3]
[https://web.archive.org/web/20170503083646/https://ston.jsc....](https://web.archive.org/web/20170503083646/https://ston.jsc.nasa.gov/collections/TRS//_techrep/TP-1999-208856.pdf)

(If you're into this sort of nerdery, I write about this stuff weekly in The
Orbital Index - [https://orbitalindex.com](https://orbitalindex.com))

~~~
azernik
Beyond NERVA [[https://beyondnerva.com/](https://beyondnerva.com/)] is also a
great source, looking not just at electrical plants but also at proposed
Nuclear Thermal Rockets.

------
praveen9920
Although the title is bit misleading, power plants on mars is exciting.
Everyone has been thinking about living on mars but I see that building
infrastructure first before sending humans is the right way to go forward.
Power is the first step towards it.

It is like water/river on earth. Civilizations are built and grown around
them.

Hopefully we can find a sustainable way to dispose or recycle the waste from
these reactors. POssibly for terraforming?

------
robbiet480
The actual RFI can be found at
[https://beta.sam.gov/opp/b92644af4767413c9e831e633c6e2888/vi...](https://beta.sam.gov/opp/b92644af4767413c9e831e633c6e2888/view?keywords=%22Idaho%20National%20Laboratory%22&sort=-relevance&index=opp&is_active=true&page=1&notice_type=r)

------
Melting_Harps
That was the whole basis for the Mars direct mode of propellant creation, and
to be honest should be the only expansion of Human based Nuclear technology.

Elon is saying he's going to put football fields of Solar panel arrays on Mars
according to Zubrin [1], as absurd as that sounds he probably will accomplish
it given his track record how long it remains viable (dust storms on Mars can
last months) is the real question, when in reality Nuclear technology should
really only be used for these kind of purposes: high risk, limited option
based energy creation. None of which apply to Earth, but do apply to Mars and
I guess the Moon.

I won't rant about how incredibly foolish the mission to the Moon is here, not
least of which putting a significant nuclear generation station on something
that orbits the Earth is, but suffice it to say it makes more sense then
building another on the Planet when we have so many more options.

1: [https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/02/mars-elon-musk-
plan-t...](https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/02/mars-elon-musk-plan-to-
settle-red-planet/)

------
jimnotgym
I know it is good to build nuclear power plants away from habitation, but this
seems a bit impractical.

~~~
nine_k
How do you power e.g. a large (radio)telescope array on the Moon when it's on
the dark side? It can be completely robot-controlled, but it would still need
significant power.

~~~
angstrom
Pick a spot that's constantly lit with sunlight?

[https://www.nature.com/news/2007/071023/full/news.2007.182.h...](https://www.nature.com/news/2007/071023/full/news.2007.182.html)

~~~
JKCalhoun
Going to get pretty crowded at the poles, no?

~~~
imhoguy
First let's put anything there :)

------
JoeAltmaier
Solar gets lots of love. But when planet-based its down 50% of the time - at
night. Not very useful for life support.

I don't know why orbital solar isn't discussed more. Folks cite efficiency
losses when transmitting to ground, but does it rise to 50% like ground-based?

~~~
Retric
I think you fundamentally misunderstand what’s needed. It’s more of a science
fiction cliche that life support needs immense amounts of power. The earths
life support is based on solar power and that has worked out just fine for
humanity. Ideally life support should be as passive as possible, and using
solar power is a great way to achieve that.

PS: Orbital solar is an issue due to launch costs, and the fact most
electricity is used in the daytime. Solar + battery is also getting very
cheap.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
No; that was clearly just an an example.

Understand that a colony on the Moon isn't there just as a proof of concept.
Its there to do something, probably industrial. Running billion-dollar
industrial processes only when the sun is shining, is clearly a downside.

~~~
Retric
If your talking scale that’s a question of economics.

Batteries + solar are already cheaper than new nuclear power on Earth over 24
hours. For Mars the reduced sunlight is an issue, but nuclear also faces major
issues without ready water and very low atmospheric pressure. Low ground
temperatures allow you to dissipate heat, but construction costs would be
dramatically higher.

The moon is different due to extended day night cycles. Which also make it
extremely unappealing for long term colonization. Trying build a reactor that
still operates when ground temperatures hit 127 degrees Celsius is again very
difficult.

Out past Mars solar is a poor fit. But, without something like cheap fusion
power it’s extremely unlikely giant colonies would be viable anyway.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Oh! Mars may not be so poor for solar. Inverse-square means less sunlight per
area, so less electricity. But thin atmosphere factors in too! Estimated
Earth-based solar loses 90% by the time sunlight gets to the ground.

So in fact a solar panel in space around the asteroid belt (outside the orbit
of Mars) gets about the same flux per square as Earth ground-based. If I
estimated right.

Anyway, talking space-based solar vs ground-based solar (not nuclear). Due to
the twin advantages of less atmosphere to get thru, and no/less night.

~~~
Retric
90% is wildly off base. In earths orbit you get ~1361 W/m2 and on the surface
you can hit 1050W/m2 of direct sunlight and up to ~1120 W/m2 when including
radiation scattered or reemitted by atmosphere and surroundings.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_irradiance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_irradiance)

Looking at averages is misleading. Clouds and the atmosphere on average reduce
this significantly, but that’s very location specific. Near the poles the sun
stays at very low angles 24/7 which significantly increases the average
absorption. But, solar is a poor fit at the poles anyway.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Ok, don't know where I got that. Looking again, I see an average of a halving
of total solar flux from space to sea level.

Mars is 144M miles from the sun, average. The earth is ~100M. That's a
difference of about 1.44:1 which puts the inverse-square reduction due to
different distances at 2:1.

What does that mean? Mars solar flux is about the same as Earth at sea level.
So expect similar solar panel efficiencies.

------
al3xandre
What if the rocket carrying the reactor explodes ?

~~~
Robotbeat
In order to get approval to launch nuclear material, the launch vehicle must
be nuclear-rated (like human-rating, it ensures safety). With the recent
retirement of the Delta II, only the Atlas V is currently nuclear-rated, but
eventually others may be. Additionally, the fuel is encased in boxes designed
to withstand launch failure and impact into the ocean without releasing the
contents.

In the case of RTGs, the fuel is always releasing heat and is always
radioactive. For fission reactors, the fuel is relatively inert and non-
radioactive until it is turned on.

The casing works pretty well. I believe there's even an instance where there
WAS a launch failure with an RTG (Atlas V has never had a legitimate launch
failure and it has flown almost 100 times), and they fished it out and reused
the fuel for another mission.

------
cblconfederate
That is going to be a long-ass cable

~~~
yakshaving_jgt
I believe the band Rage Against the Machine made a song about this. It was
called _Take The Power Back_.

------
Bombthecat
Is there something which they can transform on the moon to get fuel or
something?

Using those nuclear power plants?

~~~
aeternum
We've confirmed there is ice on the moon deep in the craters so we should be
able to convert that into hydrogen fuel and oxidizer.

~~~
valuearb
We aren’t sure how much regolith is mixed with that ice, or how we can process
it without using massive amounts of energy. It’s not like Mars where water and
CO2 are everywhere.

~~~
aeternum
Good point. The moon is probably most useful as a testbed for Mars (since we
can iterate much more quickly).

~~~
valuearb
It’s a terrible test bed for Mars because it’s environment is so vastly
different.

\- You can’t use use aerobraking to land. This means you can land much larger
cargos on Mars.

\- Your habitat has to be able to withstand temps at least 150 degrees colder
and 200 degrees hotter than what Mars requires.

\- Your climate control system has to manage this heat/cold for two weeks at a
time instead of 12 hours at a time.

\- Since there is no atmosphere or rain, Luna has razor sharp dust. You need
entirely different space suits.

\- To survive you need power storage to last for two weeks at a time instead
of 12 hours at a tube.

\- The moon doesn’t have liquid water, or easily accessible water ice.

\- It’s ice is mixed in rocks frozen at absolute zero buried in polar craters,
hundreds of degrees colder than motions of square KM of Martian surface ice
sheets hundreds of meters deep.

\- Luna doesn’t have any easily accessible CO2, or Carbon, or the same for
Iron, which litters the surface of Mars.

\- You can’t produce methane as fuel on the moon, only H2. H2 is much harder
to store for long periods. \- Etc, etc

~~~
aeternum
There are still huge advantages in testing off-world tech in a place where it
takes 3 days rather than 7 months to get there.

Are you advocating that we try to go straight to Mars rather than testing
(some) things out on the moon first?

~~~
valuearb
Yes, because testing on the moon won’t tell us much about how things work on
Mars. Having the test environment closer is obviously beneficial, but only if
the tests are predictive.

We are better off testing in Antarctica, given it being a much closer
environmental match for Mars.

------
coliveira
This doesn't make much sense, they're probably just trying to respond to
recent progress in Chinese missions to Mars, e.g.:

[http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2020-07/24/c_139238091.htm](http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2020-07/24/c_139238091.htm)

------
nullc
We finally found some place that wasn't in anyone's backyard.

------
Havoc
Well I guess there you can at least shoot the waste into space easier

------
jonplackett
How bad would it be if whatever fissile material is needed for this
(presumably much larger than previously) power plant were exploded above
Florida in a rapid unscheduled disassembly?

~~~
messe
The fuel would be encased in a protective enclosure designed to survive launch
failure.

~~~
jonplackett
Pretty impressive. I didn’t think much could survive such a massive explosion

------
ETHisso2017
Haven't they been eyeing that since the 60s?

~~~
acidburnNSA
Yes indeed. The SNAP program was the big one really, culminating with an
actual reactor in orbit.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SNAP-10A](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SNAP-10A)

The NERVA program was one part (mostly for propulsion) with many reactor
tests.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NERVA](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NERVA)

The Soviets had a few dozen nuclear reactors in space powering satellites
hunting submarines.

~~~
DuskStar
Most of those few dozen soviet reactors are still in graveyard orbits today,
in fact.

~~~
beerandt
So is SNAP.

------
holografix
Incredibly exciting! We’re living a new Cold War like space race and China is
catching up.

I wonder what are the perceived economic and military benefits of establishing
a presence on Mars. Or is it just political capital? What happens if China
gets there first? Will they claim it?

------
pseudonymousgun
Simple and genuine question, why does the US feel entitled to all natural
resources and do as it pleases ? Isn't the Moon and the mars common to all
humanity ? Why does the US assume it can do whatever it wants on these planets
? With this, other countries will join the race, and soon moon and mars will
be exploited just like we have unleashed massive ecological destruction on
earth.

~~~
jjcon
Conversely - why aren’t any other countries investing as much in space
research and development?

~~~
pseudonymousgun
Space research and development has indeed given us some very useful outcomes -
no doubt. Also, other countries are into space research and development too,
worried that this could put other able countries in a race that could result
in bad outcomes.

We have plenty of problems to solve here on earth. Is technology only about
solving for curiosity of what is possible ? Or is technology about solving
real problems of energy, minimal impact to the environment etc ?

The ocean cleanup project is a good example of solving problems for humanity
here on earth. Now that we managed to dump enormous amounts of plastic into
our waterways and eventually into oceans. There are other interesting problems
which beg technological solutions too.

~~~
coliveira
People running space exploration are not interested in making life better for
other humans. They just want to develop technology without any strings
attached. This is excellent for companies that will later get technology
transfers, i.e., free tech researched with public money. In the end it is an
excuse to enrich the 1% even more, a free lunch for the rich.

~~~
pseudonymousgun
I just got downvoted for saying something similar :) That isn't the problem.
The reason i shared these opinions here on HN, is due to the faith in the HN
community that they would be willing to have a civil discourse even if its
opposed to their worldview. That is something i least expect from the HN
community. :)

I would be happy if those who downvoted without reading the entire argument,
would also contribute their views on why this argument is wrong :)

------
excalibur
> The U.S. wants to build nuclear power plants that will work on the moon and
> Mars, and on Friday put out a request for ideas from the private sector on
> how to do that.

Stop picking fights with all the other countries. Take climate change
seriously. Maybe then you can survive long enough to build things on Mars.

~~~
garmaine
While I get the intent of what you are saying, you should know that the US is
the _only_ space faring nation that is trying hard to be collaborative and
inclusive in the peaceful exploration and utilization of space and space
exploration.

~~~
IAmEveryone
EU countries have like one space agency among the 20 of them, which looks
somewhat collaborative.

They also did not recently create “space force” to militarize space and pander
for votes in the most obnoxious way possible.

~~~
spoopyskelly
ESA is also the most useless one.

------
nimbius
this is insane. the full cradle-to-grave lifecycle of nuclear energy on our
own planet is shamefully underdeveloped given how much we rely on nuclear
power.

-plants are run far longer than their lifespan was ever designed. most have posted leaks and accidents of various sizes that could be easily avoided.

-waste is just buried. no attempt at salvage, and nothing can be done to make it safe. the US has 80 sites alone. most will be dangerous indefinitely.

-3 mile island, fukushima, and chernobyl could likely all have been prevented. all include an exclusion zone of some shape or size. none have experienced meaningful amounts of cleanup.

-Nuclear is a one-time thing. one you exhaust the mines on the moon, youre out of power and you've done nothing to embrace renewable energy.

-renewable energy is essentially infinite on the moon. the moon can reach 120c, easily enough to drive steam turbines. there is plenty of room for both terrestrial and tethered orbital solar sails.

the whole effort smacks of pandering to a dying industry.

~~~
est31
> 3 mile island, fukushima, and chernobyl could likely all have been
> prevented. all include an exclusion zone of some shape or size. none have
> experienced meaningful amounts of cleanup.

That's just wrong. Fukushima has been and still is getting a major cleanup
operation. They removed the top layers of soil in many places. For chernobyl
it's not economic because the Ukraine is very sparsely populated.

~~~
aeternum
While I like nuclear tech, we do need to acknowledge the cost and time-to-
build problem.

Reactors take so long to build that by the time they are operational, the tech
is out-dated. While newer reactors should make a meltdown almost impossible,
insuring against it is still quite expensive. This lead to high operational
costs.

The biggest enemy of nuclear is economics.

~~~
acidburnNSA
There are some pretty wild solutions to this out there, like building large
floating power plants in shipyards. Assembly line style. This was highly
developed by a joint venture between Newport news and Westinghouse in the
1970s.

Also, an important true fact is nuclear economics today are on par with system
economics of all other hypothesized low carbon energy systems. Though wind and
solar generator prices will fall, grid integration and storage will add
$40/MWh. Nuclear is already right where other options will end up.

[https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joule.2018.08.006](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joule.2018.08.006)

~~~
philipkglass
The cost assumptions in that report don't extend high enough for nuclear. The
"mid-range" cost for nuclear is given as $4700/kW. The "conservative" cost for
nuclear is $7000/kW.

But Flamanville 3 is going to finish at over $8800/kW even if there are no
further delays or overruns. Hinkley Point C is also over $8800/kW. Vogtle 3
and 4, if they complete without any further budget overruns, are going to be
over $11000/kW.

Nuclear projects have such terrible track records on cost and schedule that
they are going to be a last resort in any foreseeable cost-conscious
decarbonization plan for the US. Which is too bad, because they really do
crank out clean energy _after_ they are completely built and operating.

