fission reactors in space

On 9/15/14 5:34 PM, sailorbarsoom@... [spacesettlers] wrote:

> The 1976 NASA/Ames study at Stanford U. recommended that the initial
> Lunar base use a nuclear reactor, and later shift to solar. It was said
> to be a bit counter-intuitive, "like bringing oil to the Arabs," but
> while solar is better in the long run, they felt that nuclear allowed a
> quicker and cheaper start-up.

I'm skeptical that it's better in the long run, either. Once you've got
a working nuclear plant, and you're used to having cheap, easy energy
24/7 (or would we say 28/28 in the case of the Moon?), nobody's going to
want to add a heavy, expensive power system that only works half the time.

I suspect this was their plan all along -- solar was required to be in
the plan, so they said, "oh sure, we'll switch to solar, let's just
start with this nice easy nuclear reactor first."

It's what I probably would have done, anyway. :)

Best,
- Joe