NASA's "Prometheus" program in jeopardy.

[Three PhDs]

Anyone worried about the dangers of nuclear power for any use, be it space travel or to power our own society as opposed to relying on frakking oil, needs to look at the US Navy.

A reactor in a carrier is somewhat different from a reactor in a space probe.

[Zekk]

Hasnt any body heard of the plasma engine thats underway, i mean it would basicly mean
a real (stargate version) of the prometheus, if the energy is handled properly. (not properly = Big BOOM!!!!)

[Sum1]

i think that people are extrememly paranoid about neuclear reactors, radiation in space is not a problem and getting them up there is about the only risk there would be to the general population which in its self is small, we're not talking about bombs in space that they would use on other countries i really fail to see the problem with it at all.

1. its safe to use in space and on earth if maintained with care, which is becoming safer every year.

2. creates huge amounts of power to sustain the planet.

3. next to no atmospheric contamination with the only exception being radioactive material which is treated in the safest manner.

4. advances in neuclear energy will open the human race to all sorts of new developments and will most certainly help in manned sapce exploration area, such as mars and so on.

i think the only drawbacks are it is expensive to use but im not the expert but in the long run the rewards are alot more to earth.

I'm not an expert in this by any means, but as far as I can tell, the problem is that if there's a problem while it's in the atmosphere, you could spread radiation over quite a large portion of the planet. Granted it's not very much, vut it could still be dangerous. Don't forget about the lead they use to stop gamma radiation from leaking out - that's also poisonous and you don't want to get any of that into any living thing since it's a heavy metal and won't go away. Lead poisoning has been a problem in some parts of the world where the lead got into water, which then was absorbed by fish who were then consumed by people. There's all kinds of dangers you have to consider, especially with nuclear power.

[Jarnin]

I'm not an expert in this by any means, but as far as I can tell, the problem is that if there's a problem while it's in the atmosphere, you could spread radiation over quite a large portion of the planet. Granted it's not very much, vut it could still be dangerous. Don't forget about the lead they use to stop gamma radiation from leaking out - that's also poisonous and you don't want to get any of that into any living thing since it's a heavy metal and won't go away. Lead poisoning has been a problem in some parts of the world where the lead got into water, which then was absorbed by fish who were then consumed by people. There's all kinds of dangers you have to consider, especially with nuclear power.

Nasa has been sending plutonium up on spacecrafts for a long time. The first Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator was sent up in 1961. These RTGs are basically nuclear batteries that slowly lose their production capabilities over time as the isotope fuel is fissled away.
Nasa really knows how to build RTGs as well. For example:

There have been five known accidents involving RTG powered spacecraft. The first two were launch failures involving U.S. Transit and Nimbus satellites. Two more were failures of Soviet Cosmos missions containing RTG-powered lunar rovers. Finally, the failure of the Apollo 13 mission meant that the Lunar Module, which carried the RTG, reentered the atmosphere and burnt up over Fiji. The RTG itself survived reentry of the Earth's atmosphere intact, plunging into the Tonga trench in the Pacific Ocean. The US Department of Energy has conducted seawater tests and determined that the graphite casing, which was designed to withstand reentry, is stable and no release of plutonium will occur. Subsequent investigations have found no increase in the natural background radiation in the area.

Nasa designed the RTG to withstand reentry intact. If they can do that with a nuclear battery the size of a refrigerator, they can design a low-power reactor that can survive as well.

I think the nuclear scares of the 60's are still bleeding over into modern times. For example, I own a keychain which glows in the dark. Inside the colored plastic keychain is a borosilicate glass tube containing a small amount of tritium. Tritium is an isotope of hydrogen, and has a halflife of about 12 years. Tritium decay emits an electron (beta radiation) which excites phosphorus coating the inside of the glass tube, and it glows white.
The nifty thing about these glow sticks compared to the chemical ones you buy around halloween, is that where those stop glowing in a day or two, these will glow for 10-15 years.

The glow rings aren't available for sale in the U.S. because tritium is a radioactive material, which is commonly used in making hydrogen bombs. The interesting thing is that tritium is also used for illuminating rifle sights so hunters can hunt in low-light conditions.

So rifles with tritium illuminated sights = Ok.
But keychains with tritium illuminated colorful glow = Terrorist.

There was recently a breakthrough in what is being called "Betavoltaic Devices". In a nutshell, it's a tritium glow stick, but instead of glowing it produces electricity.
The idea is that your laptop runs on batteries, but you have to plug it in to recharge the batteries every night.
With one of these betavoltaic devices in your laptop, it would charge the batteries as they drain, and you'd wouldn't need to plug your laptop into an AC outlet for 10-15 years. Same with your iPod, cellphone, or whatever digital gizmo that you could think of.
But then you do a little research on "betavoltaics" and find that it's a NUCLEAR FISSION battery. Even though beta radiation is relatively harmless outside the body (don't eat tritium kids!), it's got that pesty "nuclear" word in it, which is known for turning people into lepers, zombies and mutants.


Sadly, I knew that the NASA Prometheus project would run into problems. It's entire mission is designed around building a nuclear reactor that can sustain Ion-like drive systems and sustain probes for decades: In other words, trips to the outer solar system. That's not part of Bush's "vision for space".

Bush wants to spend the NASA budget on getting us back to the moon (before China gets there), and getting us to Mars (to say we can still beat anyone in space). It's a propaganda stunt, not science, just like Apollo was. Luckily, Apollo actually produced alot of science for the dollars spent, so I have hopes for Bush's vision, but it'll probably get killed in an administration or two.
I already see people *****ing about it going to cost 100 billion over the next 12 years, while the US has a ballooning deficit and a war that costs 1 billion a day. If we get a moderate republican or conservative democrat in office in 2008, Bush's vision for NASA could very well go down the drain.

[Insolent_Tauri]

I sure hope not. I think it's about time we got seriously into space.

And as for nuclear reactors in space... I don't see any significant reason why it'd be dangerous. A small amount of Uranium-235 in a sealed container (a really strong one like that graphite one around the RTG) will not hurt anyone even if something goes horribly horribly wrong. And besides, how often *does* something go wrong? It's not like we're going to have to do hundreds of launches, just a couple would do fine. And since most of our rockets have failure rates well below 1% (and the russian ones are even better, go figure), the chances of a catastrophe are tiny. And once we have it up there, we can prime the reactor in a really high orbit, and hell, we can put chemical boosters on it so if something goes horribly wrong we can fling it into the sun. And we can just have a really long cable that plugs it into the ISS. Ther ewe go, no more annoying solar panels to get jammed! =P

I also think that we should build more nuke plants on earth. And as for what to do with the waste... well I've been thinking. Why not shoot it into the sun? I realise that this may sound like a somewhat ignorant solution, but if we can work out a safe way of getting it into space, the rest should be easy. A lot easier than trying to get into orbit. All we have to do is HIT a massive ball of fire. How hard can that be? The problem, of course, is getting it into space in the first place. How far off do you think a heavy lift ship is?

[SmallTimePerson]

I also think that we should build more nuke plants on earth. And as for what to do with the waste...

western australia is finally thinking of stopping some of its uranium bans. i think a nuke power plant is being planned...

[Insolent_Tauri]

Yay for nuclear power!
Plus, if we have nuke plants available, it makes fusion a much more attainable goal. And before I get a bunch of people all over me saying "fission and fusion are different, n00b!", let me explain.

Nuclear power makes a lot of electricity. A lot of a lot. At the moment, to get a fusion reactor to run requires a lot of energy. As much as can be produced by a nuclear reactor, in fact. So the more nuke plants we have available, the more cheap power we have available, and the more practical a fusion plant is. What we can do is put the fusion plant next to the fission plant, and we plug the fusion plant into the fission plant to start it up. If the fusion plant has to just draw off the grid, and for some reason the fusion plant goes offline after fusion plants are providing the bulk of our power, it'd be a hell of a job to get them started again, since there'd be a limited external power supply to use to get them started.

I've just realised that it's early in the morning and a lot of the stuff I'm posting doesn't necisarily make sense. So I'm going to stop now and do damage control later. =P

[SG-1ssm]

Concerns over Nuclear reactors in space may ground NASA's real-life Prometheus before it's off the drawing board.

Personally, I have no problem with using nuclear reactors in space... I think most opposition is just reactionary.

-IMF

The opposition is probably environmentalists who are worry that we're "pollute" space. If NASA can't do the Prometheus project then that will be a major set back in having stargate-style ships someday.

[SG-1ssm]

But what if something goes wrong? There's no guarantee that it wont, accidents happen whether you like them or not, better safe than sorry.

Big bang in space. Who cares.

[SG-1ssm]

I really hate it that the envirmentists said nuclear power is dangerous. It is perfectly safe if you know who to do it. It also reduces the air pollution that they are freaking out about.

[Dr. Pepper Girl]

I really hate people that say that Nuclear power is dangerous, it perfectly safe as long as you maintain it, and efficient and practical too

Very true, while having harmful by products, nuclear energy is extremely safe if in a correctly built, controlled, and maintained reactor. The only reason the US Navy uses nuclear power today is that they have been careful and have never had an accident. NASA needs to adapt the same philosophy.

Nice avatar by the way!

[SmallTimePerson]

The opposition is probably environmentalists who are worry that we're "pollute" space. If NASA can't do the Prometheus project then that will be a major set back in having stargate-style ships someday.

its proably less poluting than the engines we currently use.

[Insolent_Tauri]

The only reason the US Navy uses nuclear power today is that they have been careful and have never had an accident.

Not true, as I recall the US Navy lost one nuke sub... the Seawolf, I believe? But only the one. And it was early on, when we weren't really that sure what we were doing. The russions on the other hand... well, their maintenance isn't always up to scratch. :-\

So if we put US reactors on Russian rockets, we'll be set! =D

[Myst_Lore]

If only we had Cold Fusion...that would pwn so hard..

Okay...

Fission produces less energy than Fusion but takes in less as well.

Also, NASA had planned on using a prototype nuclear fusion reactor that used plasma as a propulsion. I don't know if they did it, but that would pwn too.

A good power plant on earth would be:

A fission plant and a fusion plant. The fusion plant fuses the Deutrium into Helium then the helium is pushed through turbines into the fission plant (creating electricity by pushing the turbine along the way) then the fission plant seperates the helium back into deutrium which is then put into the fusion reactor and done again. And then, bam..infinite energy. (To an extent. When hydrogen fuses, it loses some of it's mass which is converted into energy so this process would only work a few times.)

The cool thing is...I will be working at NASA after college. Hurrah for knowing someone on the inside..

EDIT:

Actually, we (the U.S.) lost two subs while Russia lost seven.

EDIT2:

Pollute space? Not possible as everything will eventually be recycled by a passing galaxy or star. No such thing as polluting the unpollutable. How would putting out some radiation be harmful when there are black holes and neutron stars that shoot jets of gamma rays, the most deadly form of radiation?

[SmallTimePerson]

The cool thing is...I will be working at NASA after college. Hurrah for knowing someone on the inside..

how do you get a job there.