NASA seeks ideas for a nuclear reactor on the moon

[TexasTowelie]

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — If anyone has a good idea on how to put a nuclear fission power plant on the moon, the U.S. government wants to hear about it.

NASA and the nation’s top federal nuclear research lab on Friday put out a request for proposals for a fission surface power system.

NASA is collaborating with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory to establish a sun-independent power source for missions to the moon by the end of the decade.

“Providing a reliable, high-power system on the moon is a vital next step in human space exploration, and achieving it is within our grasp,” Sebastian Corbisiero, the Fission Surface Power Project lead at the lab, said in a statement.

Read more: https://www.idahopress.com/news/state/nasa-seeks-ideas-for-a-nuclear-reactor-on-the-moon/article_a5e327d6-4761-596b-8981-3bcc844fa097.html

[Throck]

1. Why not solar?

The moon doesn't rotate. 24/7 sun shining.

[Blues Heron]

2. the moon rotates once a month

They should go solar though anyway.

[Throck]

11. The moon revolves around the earth every 28 days but the moon does not rotate.

The same face is always in the sun. With the exception of the occasional lunar eclipse the same face has constant sun. When we see a quarter moon we're actually seeing the dark side of the moon.

[Blues Heron]

17. the moon always presents the same face to us not the sun

it does that by rotating once every lunar orbit.

[Dial H For Hero]

20. There is no "dark side" of the moon. I can assure you that it rotates upon its axis once every 28

days.

https://www.space.com/24871-does-the-moon-rotate.html

It's tidally locked to the Earth, not the Sun.

[Throck]

21. Well I'll be dipped.

Good thing I'm not a rocket scientist.

[Dial H For Hero]

3. The Moon certainly rotates, once every 28 days. It's tidally locked.

A 14 day long night makes solar power a supplement at most for a base.

[exboyfil]

4. A band of solar cells along the equator or most perpendicular to the sun

Ambitious engineering project and ultimate in base loading balance.

You could start at two or four points with power distribution via microwaves beamed to an orbital reflector to start.

All materials exist for mass fabrication of solar panels on the moon.

[Dial H For Hero]

8. That's a bit ambitious with current tech. Perhaps in 50 or 100 years, yes...but nuclear would

be our best bet in the near future.

[hunter]

7. Those 354 hour lunar nights, about two weeks, are brutal.

Solar power doesn't work when the sun's not shining and battery storage is problematic, to say the least.

[SWBTATTReg]

5. Interesting...at least we're looking somewhat ahead to the future, for power needs (

besides solar)...a submarine's nuclear engine could possibly be the initial jumping off point, one would of course have to size it down somewhat so they can get it off the planet, perhaps ship via several rocket trips, in components that can be easily assembled in some manner. I know that water is a pretty important component of cooling the reactor, so makes it interesting as to what other materials would be readily available for cooling purposes. Lots of things to think about!

[Dial H For Hero]

10. There are compact designs that are light enough to go in one trip.

The Hyperion Power Module only weighs 50 tons, for example. The SpaceX Starship should be able to handle that easily.

[SWBTATTReg]

13. Nice to know! I was just curious as to what they'll be doing w/ the power

on the moon, are they planning on eventually putting in a station or base there? Would be nice to go back to the Moon. It would be a good site to base telescopes (on the dark side) on the Moon, since so many places on Earth are now polluted by light and/or errant radio signals. Thanks for the heads up.

[Dial H For Hero]

14. I have read that NASA has a long term goal of putting radio telescopes on the moon. Such things are

likely at least a couple of decades away, though.

[SWBTATTReg]

18. You're probably right (in the delays/long time frame to put in place). As usual, the powers that

be in Congress will decide one day that funds need to be cut/etc., and they'll dither back and forth, and then eventually, 10 or 20 years later, finally something gets set up. You would think w/ all of the stuff being discovered by the Hubble Telescope, and other optics/radio signal intercepts, etc., that perhaps more funding is justified to open the field up, and find out more about the Universe and/or Solar System in which we live. Maybe one day, eh?

[hunter]

12. The designs I've seen tend to use Stirling engines.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilopower

Curiously, similar engines have been used in non-nuclear submarines where the heat source is the combustion of liquid oxygen and fuel oil. The resulting carbon dioxide is dissolved in seawater and expelled. So long as liquid oxygen is available these subs don't have to surface.

The nuclear plants in most submarines are quite heavy, designed for high power outputs whenever the subs need to go fast.

The Stirling powered subs have electric engines and batteries so they can go fast entirely underwater for short bursts, but then they have to rest as the lower power Stirling engine recharges the batteries. They can't cross an entire ocean at higher speeds entirely underwater as a nuclear powered submarine can.

[SWBTATTReg]

15. Thanks for the info!

[chia]

6. Here's an idea, why don't we leave the moon alone? We've done enough damage to the earth.

[Dial H For Hero]

9. What "damage" could we do? We could hit it with every nuke in our arsenal, and all that would do is

add a bunch of new craters.

It's just a big rock.

[hunter]

16. The far side of the moon would be a great place for optical and radio telescopes...

... but I don't see many other good reasons to go there.

[Dial H For Hero]

19. Resource extraction, but not for quite some time.

[cstanleytech]

23. Personally I do not object to bases on the moon but I do think before we do it that

we work harder at developing other means of transportation that do not rely on rockets.
Without something like that journeys to mars as well as the moon are pointless imo.

[NickB79]

24. What are we gonna do, irradiate it?

It's already bombarded with intense radiation daily.

[cstanleytech]

22. Well it is the most reliable steady high energy source so it sounds logical.