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Scientists discover evidence for a habitable region on Saturn’s moon Enceladus

phys.org

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Re: Scientists discover evidence for a habitable region on Saturn’s moon Enceladus

#71

Post by Pinckney »

jerf wrote: post #36
bluedino wrote: post #29

Even if it was habitable, isn't most of the problem with going to Mars the fact that it takes a half of a year to get there - not a couple days like the moon? Saturn is YEARS away. Like 4-7 depending on where the planets are at.

I figure that until we build one of the various nuclear-powered boost options that have been proposed, we're not going very far in the solar system. Either we get over our fear of launching OMGNuclear!!!1! stuff, or perhaps we can loft a booster and figure out a way of launching the fuel in enough smaller launches that nobody freaks out at the idea of a few dozen pounds of uranium being dropped into several quadrilli…

The Soviets kinda spoiled it for everyone when they smeared one of their reactors all over Northwest Canada.

Re: Scientists discover evidence for a habitable region on Saturn’s moon Enceladus

#74

Post by ekianjo »

Arizhel wrote: post #50
ekianjo wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even better, ban newsweek which is nothing but a tabloid these days.

If you're going to ban anything that's basically a tabloid these days, doesn't that mean there won't be any news sites left?

I don't really like the NYT that much, but I don't think you can classify it as being a tabloid. At least it's usually well researched and substantiated for a good amount of articles.

Re: Scientists discover evidence for a habitable region on Saturn’s moon Enceladus

#75

Post by Symmetry »

knz wrote: post #70
Symmetry wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's nuclear weapons that nobody wants in space, not nuclear reactors. Almost every outer solar system probe has had a nuclear power source that relied on decay and the Russians even put reactors on one series of satellites IIRC. And people are working on building reactors. NASA has plans for one[1] in the 100kWe range. But mostly spacecraft have had low power needs and so people haven't wanted to deal with the compl…

> It's nuclear weapons that nobody wants in space I should have been more specific - isn't the fear that nuclear power generation in space could be utilized as part of a weapons program.

Developing the infrastructure to take moderately enriched Uranium and enrich it to something weapons grade is likely to be outside the industrial scope of any space facility for quite a while. When we've got 10,000,000 people living on the Moon we can use the same enforcement regime as we do with small countries on Earth. Until then it's not worth worrying about.

Re: Scientists discover evidence for a habitable region on Saturn’s moon Enceladus

#76

Post by Kholo »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #67
Kholo wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This stuff has been studied for a long time and is still being studied - https://www.nasa.gov/topics/technology/features/ntrees.html So I don't know what you are raving about.

He's talking about public perception, not about NASA research.

Public perception has nothing to do with it. The Russians and Chinese don't care about public perception. Why aren't all their rockets using nuclear propulsion? This is very expensive research. Nuclear propulsion is definitely going to be utilized it just isn't a budget priority right now.

Re: Scientists discover evidence for a habitable region on Saturn’s moon Enceladus

#77

Post by opo »

kingkawn wrote: post #54
jerf wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I figure that until we build one of the various nuclear-powered boost options that have been proposed, we're not going very far in the solar system. Either we get over our fear of launching OMGNuclear!!!1! stuff, or perhaps we can loft a booster and figure out a way of launching the fuel in enough smaller launches that nobody freaks out at the idea of a few dozen pounds of uranium being dropped into several quadrilli…

You know how sometimes you've got the best possible people, really brilliant, and all the resources, and still things go wrong? Rockets blow up for example. The fear of that happening which you see fit to mock, is justified, and no amount of self-righteous dismissiveness is going to help bridge that difference.

>...The fear of that happening

Yes, anything involving radiation causes fear. The reality is that the atomic bomb tests deposited tons of plutonium in the atmosphere and no one has detected any health consequences from that. I am not sure why someone would say a few dozen more pounds of plutonium would matter.

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