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t1_j2emmj0 wrote

Reply to comment by in Israeli pens plan for belt of solar panels on moon to power oxygen production. With NASA mulling nuclear reactor to generate energy, Ben Gurion University expert says his idea would produce same amount of power with six times less mass. by

Good luck servicing a reactor on the moon as well? What happens if a reactor melts down on the moon?

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t1_j2epuhd wrote

The astronauts are near the reactor. They can potentially service it in shirt sleeves.

A meltdown is nearly impossible with current designs, but it would definitely halt ISRU operations until a new reactor could be sent.

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t1_j2etk7k wrote

You just do it the same way you would service solar panels on the moon.

You bring the stuff with you that you need, and have highly trained personnel do it.

And while there's never a 0% chance of a meltdown, with modern reactor designs, they can make it pretty close to 0%. People are quick to think of events like Chernobyl when talking about nuclear power, but that was a very old type of reactor being used in the worst way possible. You can bet people running a much better designed reactor on the moon are gonna take it a lot more seriously.

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t1_j2ezk8z wrote

Yeah, even Chernobyl needed them to deliberately shut off safety equipment and run the reactor in an atypical experimental manner before experiencing a catastrophe.

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t1_j2fplby wrote

I genuinely don't understand how you thought this was a valuable thing to say

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