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Amongst other things, it would provide for powering installations on the dark side of the moon where there is no solar power.
The "Dark side of moon" gets sunlight. That's just what we call it because it never faces us.
[1] https://moon.nasa.gov/resources/97/the-moons-permanently-sha...
Amongst other things, it would provide for powering installations on the dark side of the moon where there is no solar power.
The "Dark side of moon" gets sunlight. That's just what we call it because it never faces us.
> The new boost to Rolls-Royce’s research pot follows a previous $303,495 (£249,000) study funded by the U.K. Space Agency in 2022 Wish them all the best, really. But I'm really curious what the study actually provided/concluded in terms of the stated goal of using the money to research the development of such a reactor. Because unless the British are so much more efficient than the EU for example, this kind of money…
A small conversation with McKinsey can go a long way in terms of influencing public policy.
It will be interesting to see a modern design, rather that the something based on 1930s physics, 1940s construction methods, built in the 1950s and put into use in the 1960s like some of these military reactors they used for remote bases.
The US army used a miniature nuclear reactor to power Camp Century in Greenland in the 60s [1]. Obviously that base had some important differences to a moon base (like being surrounded by water ice and atmosphere) and technology has advanced a bit since then, but I wonder how much you would have to change the design to make it a viable moon base. 1: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Century
Submarines are run by a crew of trained specialists at all kinds of high stakes systems, including the reactor.
> helping to create jobs across our £16 billion space tech sector
If the space tech sector is £16bn, why is it news that some corporation (£13bn+ revenue) earned a 249k grant? It reads like a Monty Python script.
> The new boost to Rolls-Royce’s research pot follows a previous $303,495 (£249,000) study funded by the U.K. Space Agency in 2022 > helping to create jobs across our £16 billion space tech sector If the space tech sector is £16bn, why is it news that some corporation (£13bn+ revenue) earned a 249k grant? It reads like a Monty Python script.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your forgetting about radiation. You don't need to conduct it all away, there are 3 modes of heat transfer, conduction, convection and radiation. In this case it's the radiation they'd rely on.
Sunlit surface of the Moon can reach 127 C. Don't know what type of reactor they choose, but it obviously won't work for boiling type of reactors. UPDATE: I forgot about not-water coolants. Molten salt or liquid metal reactors can work at 500 C, so would radiate anyway, right.