The moon doesn't rotate, so no night or day.
Of course the moon rotates. Once a month.
The dark side of the moon is a music album, not any description of reality.
The moon
did have a "dark side", but stopped having one on October 7th 1959.
Hint: Africa used to be called "The Dark Contininent", and it wasn't because of the melatonin in the inhabitants' skin
Building nuclear power stations on the moon is probably not an issue that needs solving until we have a pretty decent sized base up there, or we want to start doing some actual mining/manufacturing up there.
Until then solar + RTGs make more sense.
The moon doesn't rotate, so no night or day.
Of course the moon rotates. Once a month.
The dark side of the moon is a music album, not any description of reality.
The moon did have a "dark side", but stopped having one on October 7th 1959.
Must have been a rough day.
The moon doesn't rotate, so no night or day.
Of course the moon rotates. Once a month.
The dark side of the moon is a music album, not any description of reality.
The moon did have a "dark side", but stopped having one on October 7th 1959.
Must have been a rough day.
So bad it was front page news around the world. Scared the USA witless.
The moon doesn't rotate, so no night or day.
Of course the moon rotates. Once a month.
The dark side of the moon is a music album, not any description of reality.
Which was what I meant to convey, but stuffed it up.
I was thinking about how the moon presents the same side to us, & that there was always some part of the moon lit by the sun.
I neglected the fact that we don't see
all of the same side, all of the time.
this sounds like the plot of 'star wreck'
Build a nuclear reactor on the moon?
Well, let's see, Russia can't build a tank past WWII models that doesn't go "Pop Goes the Wiesel, er the Turret that is" when struck by almost anything larger than a 30 caliber (7.62mm¹ for you metric types) bullet. Actually their WWII models do that too.
And China has three aircraft carriers but no viable aircraft to use with them. Oh, and have you ever purchased anything from Ali Express? One month delivery and their electronic parts fall apart if soldered for a second time.
And those wonder houses of technology are going to build a nuclear reactor on the moon? I bet it will be a small one. And I wouldn't be surprised if it melts down after a year or two. If it takes even that long.
And it's not a lack of brain power. They have some excellent scientists and engineers. It's the political bosses who are so corrupt that everything gets stolen or "misdirected".
Note 1: I have to admire the European nations which have changed their military rifles to a metric caliber. Lets see, 30 caliper = 0.300 INCHES = 25.4 mm/inch X 0.300" = 7.62mm. Viola, it's metric! That's it, a mathematically exact conversion. No decimal places past the "2", just zeros to infinity. Boy was that ever so,so smart of them. No more old-fashioned units of measure there.
high power reactor cooling in space will be biggest challenge because there is no way to dissipate excess heat
Sure there is. The same way the sun sends its heat to earth. Radiation.
Heat can transfer in four ways; phase change, conduction, convection, and radiation.
Whether a high powered nuclear reactor can be cooled via radiation alone, now that's an engineering challenge.
high power reactor cooling in space will be biggest challenge because there is no way to dissipate excess heat
Whether a high powered nuclear reactor can be cooled via radiation alone, now that's an engineering challenge.
Hello, this is an idot question but, if you radiated energy hits nothing there is no heat transfer ?
The moon doesn't rotate, so no night or day.
Of course the moon rotates. Once a month.
The dark side of the moon is a music album, not any description of reality.
Which was what I meant to convey, but stuffed it up.
I was thinking about how the moon presents the same side to us, & that there was always some part of the moon lit by the sun.
I neglected the fact that we don't see all of the same side, all of the time.
Correct. We see
more than 50% of the lunar surface.
Since the 1850s this has been used to show remarkable stereoscopic views of the moon, originally for Brewster viewers. Get out your red-blue anaglyphs, and see the football
vacuum tubes can radiate some IR ~20W heat but it is not enough to radiate more power per volume
need direct anode cooling heatsink fins or water cooling for power TX tube >100W
probably reactor will melt if sun shines effectively onto such IR radiator
So, People are I believe already building Thorium-based molten salt reactors that basically are manufactured in what amounts to a shipping container. Some people think they can be the future of nuclear reactors for all. Each house subdivision has it's own energy supply. Instead of street side transformers, you have street side Thorium-based molten salt reactor powering the neighborhood. That could eliminate the need for electrical grids and remove all the risk that they pause to greater communities.
So, why build one if you could just deliver one already built?
Obviously, I'm no nuclear scientist, but if this is the future. Why would you ever attempt to build a reactor on the moon? Well, unless it's weight or something else makes it not practical to deliver / use. Melt down shouldn't be a problem since molten salt reactors operate in a meltdown state!
probably reactor will melt if sun shines effectively onto such IR radiator
A heat shield would fix that. The James Webb Telescope has a heat shield. It's -452F (-269C) in the shade and 752F (400C) on the hot side that faces the Sun.
probably reactor will melt if sun shines effectively onto such IR radiator
A heat shield would fix that. The James Webb Telescope has a heat shield. It's -452F (-269C) in the shade and 752F (400C) on the hot side that faces the Sun.
The Webb heat shield benefits from being a long ways from anything else, so the cold side effectively sees the cold sky everywhere. A shield over a reactor on the lunar surface would stabilize to the temperature of the lunar surface, which would in turn be set by thermal conduction from the subsurface layers. Somewhere around 300K.
But in any case radiating the heat from a reactor is just an engineering problem. A heat pump can raise the hot side temperature above any local temperature and radiate the heat away. Adds weight and complexity and reduces net power available, but doesn't violate any physical laws.
dont know some say that earth could be overheated by sun if didnt radiate excess heat to space
energy conservation law
maybe some fraction converts into kinetic energy
Have some fun ...
A cooling dome on the image at the first post .... in the vacuum ... is everything all right, I guess so ...
Then ... each and every nuclear station on earth , fall under basic Carnot Cycle , where active body , transfer energy from hot side to the cold side, release energy, that transformed, and then cool down even more for efficiency, by water or air cooling such as dome .... That Carnot Cycle give you about 30-40% efficiency , the rest dissipated in a thin air. so - 1000 kW electrical nuclear unit about 4200 kW Thermal power, and 3000 kW dissipating as a waste
Space reactors - same principles, atoms divided , emits energy and absorb by active body, usually liquid metal, then a difference, instead steam turbine, a thermoelectric generator. due to not much temperature different , overall efficiency quite mediocre ... for 1000W thermal power probably 70W electrical .... the rest 900+ watts need to dissipate , usually by emitters, due to vacuum ...
technically gases can be used to spin turbines in a space, Problem A- gas will be lost , need replenish, B- low efficiency due to gas masses, C- heavy spinning turbine not for a long time. D - everything sealed as part A. E- deal with hot gases , that a headache, metals absorb it and changing internal structure , etc ...
if ... thermoelectric .... then 40kW electrical transfer to 500 kW thermal , and rather heat the core of the moon , I have no clue how to dissipate it ...
I think It great, and absolutely doable project, with minimal investment (pen and paper don't cost much), with very solid result ...
It is certainly doable. My previous comment wasn't an endorsement of western safety standards. In the west we are trending towards finding that a one in a million chance of someone getting a hangnail is unacceptable. People in the US are currently going crazy over a vacuum thermos that has a lead seal that is not externally accessible, and claiming a billion dollars of emotional damage from being in the airplane that lost a window.
Yeah, after Fukushima all that hype about western secure designs is now clearly understood as BS, one only needs just a functional brain. But, hey, we are winning 3 to 1! Not to mention TMI and those "incidents" while developing the thing because then our advantage would be mostly against de Olympic sport ideals...
Which was what I meant to convey, but stuffed it up.
I was thinking about how the moon presents the same side to us, & that there was always some part of the moon lit by the sun.
I neglected the fact that we don't see all of the same side, all of the time.
The far side of the moon or the occult side of the moon, as opposed to the near side of the moon or the visible side of the moon.
Well, conflating "non-visible" with "dark" was a case of ostrich policy.
"There is no dark side of the moon really. Matter of fact it's all dark."
Well, conflating "non-visible" with "dark" was a case of ostrich policy.
Words change their meaning over time.
A couple of centuries "dark" was often used to mean "hidden" or "unknown". Thus the "Dark Arts" were hidden/secret sorcery/rituals..
It is less than 200 years since the central regions of Africa became known to Europeans (e.g. the source(s) of the Nile, Congo), so it was quite reasonable to think of Africa as being the unknown/hidden/Dark continent.
Similarly, the moon did have an unknown/dark side until October 7th 1959. On that day Luna 3 returned photographs of the far side, and it ceased to be the Dark Side of the moon.
Thorium-based molten salt reactors that basically are manufactured in what amounts to a shipping container.
KInda ... To elaborate it .... Imagine 1 huge factory building 1000 cars per day . Or same quantity builds by 1000 small auto shops. guess which one would be much cheaper.
To make project financially viable at a current state, a nuclear plant should be at least 4-6 Mega watt operational, with lifespan around 20-30 years. that translated around 1 Mw per unit.
Thorium reactors had a significant problems to scale at reasonable thermal power 3-4 Mwatt , due to difficulties to manage heat flow, evenly , and reactivity of nitrate salt + radiation, corrosion, and quite short lifespan of overall unit due to all this factors simply did cancel any projects somewhere 70-s ..
Sealed reactors , or modular reactors .... similar stuff that in use on submarines ; 3 - problems ... Currently prohibited cost ; What to do if shit happens ; what to do when it depleted \ discharged or became non working - in volumes and follow up process ...
Btw ... compare price for NE5532 in ceramic , and same as space grade , radiation hardener chip ... yep .... Then multiply on amount, pressure sensors, temperature sensors, flow sensor , alpha beta gamma radiation sensors , tensor sensors , position sensors and other kinda sensors just for that sealed reactor .....
