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The Nuclear Lightbulb (2020)

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Re: The Nuclear Lightbulb (2020)

#21

Post by api »

JulianMorrison wrote: post #18
th8700 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody would accept the fallout if it's a ground launch. And if it's a space launch, why not go directly to Project Orion?

Nobody would accept the fallout if it was a space launch either, given that crud might either hang about in LEO poisoning it for everyone else, fall out onto the planet below, or drift around in space forming a radiation hazard for future travel. You'd have to get its speed up to solar escape velocity to ensure it wouldn't be captured somewhere .

Use it for the later stages in a many stage interstellar rocket. First stages are chemical, then NERVA style contained nuclear rockets, then open cycle nuclear when you are already well past solar system escape velocity.

I’m thinking of something like an interstellar flyby probe for the Centauri system. It wouldn’t be able to stop or do much course correction but you could send basically an autonomous space telescope that transmitted back observations. It would be able to see planets in the system much better than we can from here.

Re: The Nuclear Lightbulb (2020)

#22

Post by mrfusion »

JulianMorrison wrote: post #18
th8700 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody would accept the fallout if it's a ground launch. And if it's a space launch, why not go directly to Project Orion?

Nobody would accept the fallout if it was a space launch either, given that crud might either hang about in LEO poisoning it for everyone else, fall out onto the planet below, or drift around in space forming a radiation hazard for future travel. You'd have to get its speed up to solar escape velocity to ensure it wouldn't be captured somewhere .

> drift around in space forming a radiation hazard for future travel.

Do you realize how big space is?

Re: The Nuclear Lightbulb (2020)

#23

Post by [deleted] »

JulianMorrison wrote: post #18
th8700 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody would accept the fallout if it's a ground launch. And if it's a space launch, why not go directly to Project Orion?

Nobody would accept the fallout if it was a space launch either, given that crud might either hang about in LEO poisoning it for everyone else, fall out onto the planet below, or drift around in space forming a radiation hazard for future travel. You'd have to get its speed up to solar escape velocity to ensure it wouldn't be captured somewhere .

[deleted]

Re: The Nuclear Lightbulb (2020)

#24

Post by Baeocystin »

tyingq wrote: post #16
Baeocystin wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The one I played with as a kid used oven light bulbs. They look pretty much the same, but solderless construction, and IIRC quartz glass and a slightly more robust filament.

Hmm. Any idea roughly what year? The manuals I can find online all say "standard light bulb". Like: https://imgur.com/a/uF9ffe1 https://imgur.com/a/F7WwpGg

Huh. Interesting. This would have been the late 70's/early 80's.

Re: The Nuclear Lightbulb (2020)

#27

Post by baybal2 »

JulianMorrison wrote: post #18
th8700 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody would accept the fallout if it's a ground launch. And if it's a space launch, why not go directly to Project Orion?

Nobody would accept the fallout if it was a space launch either, given that crud might either hang about in LEO poisoning it for everyone else, fall out onto the planet below, or drift around in space forming a radiation hazard for future travel. You'd have to get its speed up to solar escape velocity to ensure it wouldn't be captured somewhere .

Radiation hazard of single digit nuclear rocket launches will completely pale in comparison to total amount of radiation coming from Sun, and space.

Do you understand how much radiation it is in space? All human nuclear experiments in 20th century together wouldn't be even a rounding error there.

Re: The Nuclear Lightbulb (2020)

#28

Post by klyrs »

nosmokewhereiam wrote: post #25
Black101 wrote: post #17

I just want a nuclear car...

"Our water pump went out" would go from being a 2 hour side of the road fix or tow to potentially a mutli-decade incident... Either add a second pump or just power it from a legit non-mobile federally rated reactor plant.

Sure, but imagine it -- the road would be traffic-free for decades! Nevermind the trees growing in the street...

Re: The Nuclear Lightbulb (2020)

#30

Post by retrac »

baybal2 wrote: post #27
JulianMorrison wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody would accept the fallout if it was a space launch either, given that crud might either hang about in LEO poisoning it for everyone else, fall out onto the planet below, or drift around in space forming a radiation hazard for future travel. You'd have to get its speed up to solar escape velocity to ensure it wouldn't be captured somewhere .

Radiation hazard of single digit nuclear rocket launches will completely pale in comparison to total amount of radiation coming from Sun, and space. Do you understand how much radiation it is in space? All human nuclear experiments in 20th century together wouldn't be even a rounding error there.

This does not follow. Photons from the sun are not radioactive isotopes that can rain down on us as they decay from orbit. And the magnetosphere protects us from the bulk of the solar wind's traces of heavier isotopes. How much plutonium or whatever, is in near-Earth space, other than what we've sent up there? The old Soviet reactor-powered RORSAT series have their cores in orbit still. They'll come down eventually. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosmos_954 which crashed in the Canadian arctic. A cleanup operation was attempted over a wide area, as it survived reentry with pieces intact.

> They were ultimately able to recover twelve large pieces of the satellite, ten of which were radioactive.[1] These pieces displayed radioactivity of up to 1.1 sieverts per hour, yet they only comprised an estimated 1% of the fuel. One fragment had a radiation level of 500 R/h, which "is sufficient to kill a person ... remaining in contact with the piece for a few hours."

A more pragmatic argument is that, after the fission of literal tonnes of plutonium in the atmosphere in the previous century, the small risk of losing a few kg more here or there pales in comparison. Even all those RORSATs barely register in comparison to that.

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