‘Suitcase’ Nuclear Reactors to Power Mars Colonies, Discovery.com by Ian O’Neill, August 30, 2011:
[...] On Monday, at the 242nd National Meeting and Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS) in Denver, Colo., the future face of space nuclear power was described. [...]
Of course, to make these “mini-nuclear reactors” a viable option for the first moon and Mars settlements, they’ll need to be compact, lightweight and safe. [...]
Sadly, I suspect the biggest hurdle facing space fission power won’t be the viability of its technology, but the bad press nuclear power receives, on Earth and in space.
via SpaceRef
sending...
Maybe if there were no accidents the would no ‘bad press’?
‘there’
We must never allow the rich to colonize off-world. There should be a cessation of spending money on such fantasies until AFTER we, as a species, learn well to live by biomimicry, without exploitation, within the proscribed confines of our ecosystem, all we’re entitled to and to steward well this planet first. Stewardship includes eliminating exploitation/hoarding based socioeconomic systems. We are barbarians, as a species, and not any inevitable or “natural” sense, without doing so. Right now we are among the least intelligent of all species on the planet. We must not allow the fascist despots at the top of status quo hegemonic parasitic systems to either move underground. If most of us are going to go extinct, so are the short-sighted, parasitic, selfish f-ckers who created this mess.
Obviously, we must not allow suitcase nukes, without revolution as the response. I fully mean and intend guillotine style against the leaderships of hierarchies that create suitcase nukes. Remember, the U.S. military and human technologies are eminently failable. Along with increasingly regular nuclear power reactor meltdowns from now on, if we allow this idiocy to perpetuate, we will have plutonium and other suitcase nuke fuel raining down on us, as well. Completely outrageous and unacceptable. Be furious!!!
What if there is a Challenger-type explosion as the vehicle is taking off? Then the “suitcase nuke” material will rain down upon the earth below.
Here is a company that needs to be stopped.
http://www.nuscalepower.com/
Of all things…fission is the worst of all things nuclear. They should be trying their hardest to reach fusion.
Yeah that sounds much better… let’s replace finite explosive technology (fuel = radioactive elements) with infinite explosive technology (fuel = all matter).
“Sadly” biggest hurdle for space fission may be bad press….. no, the biggest hurdle will be we’re all dead.
Given that we can’t even get back to the moon, I think travel to Mars is a few decades away, decades that we don’t have.
Maybe if we don’t ruin this planet we won’t have to think about having colonies on Mars.
I feel sorry for all life on Mars.
pallas, you are so right about these power hungry, insane elitist scum.
While not nuclear reactors per se, there are a few RTGs (Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators) on the moon.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_generator