Light weight nuclear reactor, updating Mars Direct

tahanson43206 · 2021-06-07 05:27:32

For Calliban re #200

SearchTerm:Nuclear power fission tradeoffs Reference SP-100 design

The growth plan described would require support by on-site personnel.

If you have time, could you (would you) rough out a staffing plan for a nuclear power facility for Mars?

Even if the initial stages of development are automated, there would (presumably) be a small army of personnel supporting the onsite systems for several years prior to landing for several years after.

Multiple Nation States are currently capable of setting up nuclear facilities on Mars.

(th)

Mars_B4_Moon · 2022-05-11 10:58:44

DARPA issued a solicitation for proposals for the next phase of a demonstration of a nuclear powered spacecraft
https://spacenews.com/darpa-moving-forw … pacecraft/
US military wants nuclear rocket ideas for missions near the moon
https://www.space.com/darpa-nuclear-roc … moon-space

Mars_B4_Moon · 2022-09-02 04:22:29

China’s mysterious space nuclear reactor allegedly can power 10 International Space Stations
https://interestingengineering.com/inno … e-stations
Little is known about the specifications of the project, but it is edging closer.

Designed by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the dynamic reactor can generate one megawatt of electricity — 100 times more powerful than a similar device Nasa plans to put on the surface of the moon by 2030 — for spacecraft power supply and propulsion.
That is enough to power the equivalent of 10 International Space Stations, Space said. Previously, a NASA estimate had revealed that the complex receives 120 kilowatts of electrical power at most.
The project was launched with funding from the central government in 2019.
Already a step ahead with nuclear-powered space missions
Robotic missions to outer planets receive extremely low levels of energy from the sun, rendering solar power generation "useless". For such missions, nuclear fission systems offer efficient levels of power and electricity propulsion.
China has been actively pursuing and expanding its deep space capabilities in recent years, developing cryogenic rockets, reusable launchers, and suborbital spaceplanes. It is also highly experienced in using nuclear power during space missions.
The country is highly experienced in using nuclear power during space missions, with the Chang'e 3 moon lander, for example, using a plutonium-powered nuclear generator to survive the frigid, two-week lunar night.
In 2019, senior Chinese space exploration official Wu Weiren, director of the newly-established Tiandu deep space exploration laboratory, called for developments in nuclear power for space to meet future mission requirements.

Mars_B4_Moon · 2022-09-21 12:52:00

NASA Releases Updated Moon To Mars Objectives

https://spaceref.com/science-and-explor … bjectives/

Mars_B4_Moon · 2023-02-12 09:05:56

Coming to a campus near you: Nuclear microreactors

https://www.nbcnews.com/science/science … -rcna69980

SpaceNut · 2023-02-25 11:47:30

We have been talking about the SMR or what is also a Micro nuclear system capable of meg watts in the less than 100Me as compared to the gigawatt systems. So, to get then down in size we are needing Nano sized systems that place them into the 100kw size which could supply several homes rather than a small city.

Is there a micronuclear reactor that can power up a house for entire life time with the nano level of materials needed as

Our Fission-fusion nanoreactor has 5cm and 200gram, as an unlimited source of cheap clean energy, can decrease the price of energy 10 times and can power a single-family home or car. The principle is similar to two-phase thermonuclear weapons, in plasma we ignited nanometric artificial sun. The Gravi-nuclear reactor is highly safe because uses only 1gram of Thorium and a drop of Deuterium and does not generate any radioactive waste. Generated power depends on fuel, but will be about 20kW with Thorium-Deuterium. Additionally need a heat exchanger.

This is also the size that mars will need as its small enough to bring to mars in a starship sized craft.

Here is web page with such talk even to be used in a car...

Mars_B4_Moon · 2023-03-18 22:44:05

I don't know if the Moon will have Nuclear Cars. We have an ongoing 'Ford Nucleon' type threads and some threads discussing the crazy vehicle concepts used in exploration of the Antarctic.

There has been talk on the web for many years about getting electricity and power on Mars, MOX fuelrods with in core control rods, a rotating reflector drum for shut down, SAFE-400 were NASA 's small experimental nuclear fission reactors for electricity production and SP-100 a U.S. research program on fission reactors usable as small power systems, recent discussion on the possibility of fusion getting more real and no longer being a fringe scifi thing. A lot of people think RTGs are not dangerous since they are not true reactors but they can be far more dangerous and are already in common use by multiple countries, agencies in space. The RTG heat produced through spontaneous radioactive decay non-adjustable and steadily decreasing rate that RTG's are commonly used for electricity or heat they function independently of sunlight, which is necessary for deep space exploration and you will not survive the Lunar Night without some kind of power source. People have even 'Lost' this stuff, the CIA back in 1965 even once Lost an RTG when it was put up on the Indian side of the Himalayas for a station to look into China but ended up sliding down a mountain somewhere during an avalanche. NASA has already been using RTG's for many years in space with Vikings, Galileo, Voyager, the Mars Science Lab, the Russians and Chinese have also used Nuclear power, NASA's Cassini mission and ESA with the Ulysses spacecraft, the Soviet one time used Nuclear power for lighthouses and beacons at cold stations on Earth. I think an online newspaper from India called the Hindu says that India hopes to have manned missions and space stations and that ISRO plans for nuclear energy use in space.
I believe researchers looked at Stirling, Brayton, Rankine, and Ericsson heat cycle systems for NASA Asteroid exploration or maybe it was a news article on Glenn research project to explore distant Kuiper Belt Objects. There was also the Snapshot in 1965 which tested nuclear power and an ion engine.
'The Snapshot (Space Nuclear Auxiliary Power Shot) satellite was launched on April 3, 1965 a SNAP 10A nuclear power system into a 1300 km orbit with a cesium ion engine as a secondary payload.'
https://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/snapshot.htm
103 page pdf
https://web.archive.org/web/20170215062 … 146831.pdf
Overview
https://web.archive.org/web/20130215134 … rview.html
Orbit
https://www.heavens-above.com/orbit.aspx?satid=1314

Tahanson has updated other forum discussions with news article 'Rolls-Royce has received funding to develop a nuclear reactors for Space'

Here are some of the British news headlines

Rolls-Royce reveals ‘nuclear’ plan for the Moon – and it could be up and running sooner than you think
https://www.thesun.co.uk/tech/21749045/ … tor-power/
Rolls-Royce gets funding for moon base nuclear reactor
https://news.sky.com/story/rolls-royce- … r-12835523
It is hoped that the eventual lunar base will prove a suitable home for astronauts

Here is another discussion

'NASA and DOE to test kilopower nuclear reactor for space applications'
https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=7947

In general I am against using the Moon as a stepping stone to Mars but in some areas of science there is a clear link and cross over between the two areas of exploration or colonization for example to develop nuclear reactor for Moon exploration will help Mars exploration.

Calliban · 2023-05-18 05:59:46

This is interesting.
https://www.osti.gov/biblio/4802562

We have discussed Strontium-90 RTGs in the past. Kbd512 talked about using them as power sources for interplanetary ships. Strontium-90 is a dominant long-lived fission product, with a half life of 30 years. A largely nuclear powered Martian economy would produce a great deal of Sr-90 as a waste product. One of the problems with using Sr-90 as a heat source is Bremsstrahlung radiation. This x-rays caused by beta particles rapidly decelerating upon encountering high-Z materials, in this case other strontium nuclei. By dissolving strontium into a liquid alloy with lithium, this radiation can be largely eliminated because each strontium aton is surrounded by a sea of lithium atoms, which are low-Z. A steel flask containing liquid strontium-lithium alloy could provide the basis for a long duration RTG, which is safe to handle.

Calliban · 2023-05-27 05:17:38

One of these would be ideal for a Mars mission. 12' tall and weighing 2000lb.
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2023/05/m … sting.html

tahanson43206 · 2023-05-27 18:32:57

For Calliban re #209

Thank you for the link to the article about the (relatively) new reactor design!

I am looking for a reactor design that could be reproduced by the thousands in a short period of time, such as a year or two.

As you evaluate this particular design, and taking into account it is not yet through the approval process, do you think this design might be capable of mass production?

***
Here is a related item ... we have some members who are cynical about the human race, so I am trying to head off the possibility one of them may suffer an impulse to pop a cork.

The head of a large global government organization took part in an interview recently, and I was finding the discussion reasonably predictable until the interviewer asked a question about energy, and the official said without hesitation that we (humans) need MORE energy and lots of it, and quickly.

I bring this to your attention because the availability of a small reactor that might be deployed at the village level would be a signal for massive investment in people around the availability of additional energy for goods and services, without the baggage of existing energy supply systems.

The full-scale replica of the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) MARVEL microreactor has been moved to a facility in Pennsylvania where it will be used to test the behavior of sodium-potassium and lead-bismuth coolants. The Microreactor Applications Research Validation and Evaluation (MARVEL) sodium-potassium-cooled microreactor will generate 100 kW and is expected to begin operation at INL’s Transient Reactor Test Facility by the end of 2024. It will be used to develop regulatory approval processes, test microreactor applications, evaluate systems for remote monitoring, and develop autonomous control technologies, and to explore and test microreactor capabilities for applications such as thermal storage, water purification and district heating. It will also be connected to INL’s first nuclear microgrid.

(th)

Calliban · 2024-01-08 17:55:07

NASA have finally gotten around to producing a conference paper on a molten salt cooled, lattice confinement fusion fission hybrid reactor.
https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio … face_Power

This concept is neat idea. Lattice confinement fusion would generate fast neutrons, which would fast-fission 238U. This would release more (slower) neutrons, as well as gamma rays from fission products. Both of these would energise deuterium within the metal lattice, resulting in more fusion within the lattice, more fast neutrons, more fission, etc. In this way, the reactor can sustain a chain reaction on depleted uranium. This would be impossible without the neutrons generated by fusion. This concept could provide a lightweight reactor for Mars surface power, as well as completely revolutionising nuclear power here on Earth. It could in principle, allow high burn up nuclear fuels to be created from natural or even depleted uranium. Given the potential of this discovery, I am puzzled that it has received so little attention.

Void · 2024-01-08 20:55:21

I kind of grasp some of it and it sounds good, but I cannot have any useful contribution to make about it, except that Mars has Deuterium, more than Earth.

Sorry about that.

Done

So, I guess I will make an attempt. Is it sort of two hands working together to do a task?

To slam Deuterium's together for fusion requires incredible temperature and pressure, so we are not doing it.
Hydrogen including Deuterium will infiltrate metals, especially a lattice, I presume.
Neutrons and gamma rays from the Uranium may slam into the Deuterium, somehow perhaps exciting the Uranium with further Neutrons.
Somehow Fission<>Fusion causes a conversion of small amounts of mass to radiation and/or molecular vibrations.

This is as far as I can visualize it. Am I at all close? It is a neat trick; I think I see, but maybe not?

Done

This leads me to ask if substellar objects could do Fission<>Fusion, at a very low rate?

Most objects studied such as the Moon and Mars are warmer than models seem to have expected them to be.

Done

Last edited by Void (2024-01-08 21:06:25)

Calliban · 2024-01-09 05:55:43

I'm not a phycisist. But what appears to happen is that the lattice metal forms covalent bonds with the deuterium atoms. The hybrid orbitals are more compact than the D2 orbitals would have been, because the metal ion draws charge away from the deuterium atoms, due to the higher charge density of the metal nucleus. However, the orbital in which the deuterium atoms are embedded, still has sufficient electron density to shield the deuterium nuclei from mutual electrostatic repulsion. This means that they can get much closer to one another than they could if they were part of diatomic deuterium.

If two deuterium nuclei are sufficiently close, strong forces will overcome electrostatic repulsion allowing them to fuse. If one of the nuclei is sufficiently energised, say due to a collision with a gamma ray or neutron, it will gain enough energy to tunnel through the electrostatic barrier and fuse with a neighbouring atom. In a fission reactor, there is a high flux of neutrons and gamma rays permeating the core materials. So if deuteride containing metals are present in the core, some of that energy will induce fusion through collision with deuterium nuclei. This will release most of its energy as fast neutrons, which will induce more fission, releasing more neutrons and gamma rays. So the fusion fuels act as a sort of neutron multiplying module.

All nuclear reactors have a fast-fission factor. Neutrons with energy greater than 1MeV have potential to fast fission 238U. The 238U will not fission with slow neutrons. But we can expect some 238U atoms to undergo fission by neutrons that have had insufficient collisions to slow down. In a sodium cooled fast reactor, about 10% of fissions are fast fissions. In a moderated light water reactor, it is about 1%. So pure fission reactors, even fast reactors, cannot sustain a chain reaction on 238U alone. These reactors employ breeder blankets to absorb neutrons and breed 239Pu, which will fission on slower neutrons and can maintain a chain reaction. The most ambitious concepts are travelling wave reactors. These shuffle breeder blanket assemblies inward, absorbing more neutrons the closer they get to the core. By the time they reach the inner core, enough plutonium has been bred to allow them to sustain a chain reaction. Because fission is relatively poor in neutrons, this only works with high fuel burnups. This is a challenge, because high burnup fuel means high neutron fluence in cladding materials, making cladding brittle and likely to fail. By putting LCF neutron multiplier modules into the core, we can avoid this limitation. The average neutron energy increases, which boosts the fast-fission factor and the number of neutrons in the core increases. This allows us to establish a travelling wave at lower fuel burnups.

To cut a long story short, this allows us to build fast reactors that are fuelled with depleted uranium and extract 10-20% of energy present in the uranium without needing any enrichment or reprocessing. Existing LWRs extract only about 0.4 - 0.5% of energy contained within uranium. It should be obvious why this would be a game changer for nuclear power both on Earth and on Mars. It essentially eliminates all fuel cycle costs associated with nuclear power. Depending upon the burnup reached, it will cut uranium fuel requirements per unit energy, by a factor between 20 - 50.

Even without reprocessing, it reduces the volume of spent fuel waste by a factor between 3 and 6. If we do decide to reprocess, it gets better, because the actinides left in the spent fuel of the reactor will contain enough fissile material to fuel additional light water reactors. The spent LWR fuel can then be reprocessed to remove fission products and then put back into the travelling wave reactor. So we eventually get a completely closed fuel cycle thanks to tye extra neutrons that LCF multiplier modules provide. Weight for weight, neutrons are the most valuable 'substance' on our planet. Or any planet.

Last edited by Calliban (2024-01-09 06:33:01)

RobertDyck · 2024-01-09 07:41:55

My understanding is fast neutrons do not cause 238U to fission. Uranium 238 requires a 2 step process: one moderated neutron is absorbed by 238U turning into 239U. That has a half-life of 23.45 minutes, decaying through beta emission to Neptunium-239. That decays with a half-life of 2.356 days through beta emission to Plutonium-239. That is fissile, it will split if hit with another moderated neutron.

Calliban · 2024-01-09 08:09:08

Robert, see here:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium … r_reactors

238U will fission with fast enough neutrons, but cross section is negligible beneath 1MeV. That means fast-fission only accounts for a small proportion of fission even in fast reactors, as it needs to occur before fission neutrons have lost much of the energy they are born with (2MeV). So it can never dominate the fission process in fission reactor, even if the neutron spectrum is hard. But each deuterium fusion releases 2.45MeV neutrons. De-T fusion releases 14.1MeV neutrons. So if even a small percentage of fission neutrons cause a fusion event as they slow down, it would have a dramatic impact on neutron spectrum.

RobertDyck · 2024-01-09 09:27:38

This thread was created for an update to Mars Direct. Robert Zubrin and his partner David Baker wrote the Mars Direct plan in 1990. It used the SP100 reactor which was under development at the time under SDI. In 1990 Dr Zubrin thought reducing power to 85% could reduce reactor mass by the same amount. Development was finished in 1992, and a reactor producing 85 kW would mass the same as one producing 100 kW. So Dr Zubrin had to update his Mars Direct plan, accounting for a heavier reactor. This thread is based on the SAFE-400 reactor. Finished in 2007, developed by the exact same team, also producing 100 kW electricity, and also designed to work in space. The new reactor is lighter. That's important because life support equipment proved to be heavier than Dr Zubrin's estimates. In 2005 I got details of life support equipment built by Hamilton Sundstrand for ISS. Directly from their website. I argue to use the exact same equipment. It exists, and has been proven in space. Ironically, every time I read their website and recommended them to someone planning a mission to Mars, Hamilton Sundstrand moved their website. I don't understand why; I wasn't trying to steal their design or compete with them, I was promoting/marketing their product. Oh well. The point is a lighter reactor is necessary to compensate for the fact life support is heavier.

Mars_B4_Moon · 2024-04-05 16:04:19

Space experts foresee an “operational need” for nuclear power on the Moon | “We do anticipate having to deploy nuclear systems on the lunar surface."

https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/04/s … -the-moon/

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