Nuclear fission, was: Mars Society Statement on Bush Space Initiative

> From: Bill [mailto:qwerty172@...]

> Reactors, even small
> ones are bigger than the largest rockets available. A reactor would
> have to be shipped into space in pieces and put together there.

A comercial nuclear power station produces about 1GW and is the size of several football pitches.
A nuclear sumbarine's nuclear reactor produces 10MW and is the size of a large manor house.
In contrast, typical nuclear-thermal 'reactors' operate at 10KW or less and are sized somewhere between a suitcase and small car.

A luna reactor doesn't need to be much more powerful than 100KW. Though it might weigh ten or twenty tons it wouldn't be impossible to launch it in one go. Remember the shuttle launch system puts over a hundred tons into orbit including the shuttle.

> Now once we accept that the reactor would leave the planet in pieces,
> there is nothing in any of the pieces (including the fuel which would
> most likely be Thorium or Uranium 235) that is actually dangerous.

If you were going to do it in pieces the safest way to transport the fuel would be a soyuz module. Though there have been failures with the launch system (some violent) I'm pretty sure not a single soyuz has ever been lost. Mostly due to the escape rocket on top.

> Does anyone seriously believe that NASA would buy a used reactor to
> launch into space in one piece?

Buy a used reactor? No. Send one into space in one piece? Very possible. The safeest method might be to launch it in one piece and then send the fuel up seperately, with an OTV on standby in the case that, against all reason, it somehow ends up in a dangerously low orbit.

ANTIcarrot.