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Killer_Moons t1_jcjy5mq wrote

Important context from article:

*All space missions depend on a power source, to support systems for communications, life-support and science experiments.

Experts suggest nuclear power could dramatically increase the length of lunar missions.

The UK Space Agency has announced £2.9m of new funding for the project, which will deliver an initial demonstration of a UK lunar modular nuclear reactor.

This comes after a £249,000 study funded by the UK Space Agency in 2022.

The science minister George Freeman said: “Space exploration is the ultimate laboratory for so many of the transformational technologies we need on Earth: from materials to robotics, nutrition, cleantech and much more.

“As we prepare to see humans return to the moon for the first time in more than 50 years, we are backing exciting research like this lunar modular reactor with Rolls-Royce to pioneer new power sources for a lunar base.*

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TheFarawayOne t1_jck5gmw wrote

The title sound like what a Bond villain would do.

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viconha t1_jck8zdb wrote

Btw this is not the same Rolls-Royce that makes cars, in case anyone is confused.

They separated in the 70s

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WhatTheZuck420 t1_jckbhjr wrote

would not want to be downwind when they launch the pellets/rods

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jennybearyay t1_jckg4p4 wrote

What is there is a nuclear reactor meltdown on the moon? Or an explosion that damages the moon? How will that affect the Earth?

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jens-2420 t1_jckii5t wrote

A Tesla car in orbit, soon a nuclear Rolls on the moon

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TechNickL t1_jckiy4y wrote

Replying to jennybearyay (#2,253,360)

Realistically, it won't.

a) reactor meltdowns don't cause nuclear explosions like a bomb does. They just get radiation all over the place. Chernobyl was a pressure explosion, and it was an exceptionally badly built and operated reactor.

b) the amount of radiation that the sun puts out that hits the earth is orders of magnitude greater than anything man-made could ever create.

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Ronny_Jotten t1_jckjcg0 wrote

I can't pay no doctor bills
But whitey's on the moon
Ten years from now I'll be payin' still
While whitey's on the moon
The man just upped my rent last night
Cause whitey's on the moon
No hot water, no toilets, no lights
But whitey's on the moon

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na_gooyin t1_jckkvvc wrote

Replying to TechNickL (#2,253,552)

Following up on point A, let’s say hypothetically the reactor does have a meltdown and we have another Chernobyl disaster. How will we suppress a reactor meltdown were it to happen in space, away from the equipment and resources we have down here on earth? How will it affect future missions to the moon?

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NotShey t1_jcknk77 wrote

Replying to na_gooyin (#2,253,688)

It won't. The particular structure the reactor is housed in will be ruined, but um... it's the moon, it's already a mildly radioactive wasteland. If they can, likely stick it in the bottom of a crater a couple miles from the main base, so even if the whole thing melts down, the base will be fine.

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jormungandrsjig t1_jcknp7i wrote

Replying to na_gooyin (#2,253,688)

> Following up on point A, let’s say hypothetically the reactor does have a meltdown and we have another Chernobyl disaster. How will we suppress a reactor meltdown were it to happen in space, away from the equipment and resources we have down here on earth? How will it affect future missions to the moon?

Use an oversized spatula and flip it off the surface into interstellar space.

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NotShey t1_jckntd7 wrote

Replying to kamekaze1024 (#2,253,468)

Fucking what? Lmao. You could detonate 1000 of the largest nuclear bombs ever built by man at once and it wouldn't effect the mass or orbit of the moon enough to have any effect on earth. A single small reactor sure as shit wouldn't do anything.

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Ronny_Jotten t1_jckoq84 wrote

Replying to Aelok (#2,253,689)

Lol. This is an excerpt from the 1970 spoken-word piece Whitey on the Moon by hall-of-famer Gil Scott-Heron. It's one of the most famous and well-respected poems of the "space age". It's unfortunately still topical today, with white billionaires in a pissing match to see which can get their rocket-powered cocks up first, while regular folks are becoming homeless by the thousands every day because their rent has doubled. Think you can work at Bezos' Amazon warehouse and afford basic food and shelter, let alone health care? Good luck. Some people might say that the idea of a moon base, with a Rolls Royce nuclear reactor, sounds a bit hard to swallow, under the circumstances.

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Ronedog22 t1_jcksrh2 wrote

I guess the tv show For All Mankind wasnt that sci-fi. Nuclear powers the moon-base on that show.

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ACCount82 t1_jckt8e2 wrote

Replying to Hunky_not_Chunky (#2,254,074)

The issue with cooling in open space is that there's nothing you can dump your waste heat into.

Things like ISS use special radiators to radiate away waste heat - while small things that can generate a lot of heat for their size, like space suits, use water evaporation to mount a compact heat removal system.

On the surface of the Moon, you have the entire Moon that you could dump your waste heat into.

Of course, actually dumping the heat into the ground is an engineering and construction challenge - so early Moon and Mars reactors might opt for radiators, like the ones ISS currently uses. They would need a lot of them, but it's still doable for small reactors.

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martixy t1_jckt964 wrote

In other news, Rolls Royce taken over by Bond villain. More at 11.

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ACCount82 t1_jcktdow wrote

Replying to WhatTheZuck420 (#2,253,035)

Launching nuclear fuel into space is fairly safe, because it only becomes highly radioactive after the reactor starts running.

So you build and launch your reactor in a fully "stopped" state. You make sure it makes it to its destination. And only then you start the reactor and make the fuel "hot".

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Shavethatmonkey t1_jckuvyq wrote

Replying to kamekaze1024 (#2,253,468)

What would destroy the moon? You guys have a weird idea of what you think a small reactor can do. We've had dozens of reactor failures on earth, none came close to destroying the planet.

This is a fundamental misunderstanding of the size of planets vs the size of nuclear explosions.

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Azetik t1_jcl4pz8 wrote

Quite the headline… However, they already make engines and involved in defense industry, this doesn’t surprise me very much…

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jennybearyay t1_jcl9cie wrote

Replying to TechNickL (#2,254,688)

Yeah, I don't care about the karma. It's just interesting what people will downvote. I don't know much about nuclear science so I don't see how the answer is obvious enough to get mad someone asked 😂

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SeveralDiving t1_jclcw0s wrote

Replying to Aelok (#2,253,689)

That something a racist would say, and it’s common describing the ignorance of the filthy rich by that comparison. Have some class or at the very least some substance you shriveled bean countin ignoramus.

−8

mood_le t1_jcldzvp wrote

One time I was on a plane & noticed the turbines were made by RR

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Gooner71 t1_jcll7w7 wrote

UK own the Moon, its ours now.

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rwilcox t1_jclr87n wrote

r/ForAllMankindTV has entered the chat

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DampTowlette11 t1_jcm1dw4 wrote

Replying to jennybearyay (#2,254,014)

No harm. Ignore the people who are giving you shit.

Back to fun space facts, have you ever heard of time dilation? If you were to accelerate to an insane speed in order to reach another planet, you would be perceiving time at a slower rate than the rest of us. There is a scifi book where soldiers go across the galaxy, fighta brief war, then return to an earth that has seen centuries pass during their trip.

Space is expanding at an ever increasing speed. At some point, we may not be able to see other galaxies as the space between galaxies is expanding faster than the light can travel to reach us.

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ImUrFrand t1_jcm3cnv wrote

typically nasa and other nations' space agencies use nuclear batteries, deriving electricity from decaying fissal material...

a reactor would provide long term electricity, but it will be much more dangerous than batteries.

terrestrial reactors rely on water for cooling and power generation through conversion to steam... which probably isn't going to work on the moon.

this might just be a puff project to line the pockets of the lowest bidder.

−1

[deleted] t1_jcmcnwz wrote

Replying to Lord_Frederick (#2,255,581)

No, but that's mostly because nuclear powered cars aren't worth the effort and they'd weigh like 10 tons. Plus, fallout's nuclear cars only came about because of the resource shortage anyway, and you still had to "Gas" them with coolant which is why Red Rocket was a thing, so you didn't have unlimited range either.

They'll develop a way to charge cars through their tires on road surfaces before they put mini nukes on them. Fallout's culture was...not the most safety orientated as well.

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sungod-1 t1_jcmdfhp wrote

It better be thorium instead of u-235

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Lord_Blizzard t1_jcmkbll wrote

The first inhabitant of the moon base should be Joel Kinnaman.

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robjpod t1_jcmo2oh wrote

We are living in a Sean Connery era James Bond movie.

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account22222221 t1_jcmv8pm wrote

Replying to 1015267 (#2,253,012)

Add to that they also are big players in jet turbines. Most people know the from their cars but they definitely have the big engineering chops to build a reactor!

Edit: I think they are technically a different company now according to some other comments. The cars are now owned by bmw. Doesn’t change the fact that the actual rolls Royce company has a lot of big engineering expertise.

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Remarkable-Net-2030 t1_jcn0net wrote

It’ll be gorgeous, not work that well, and super hard to find anyone who can work on it.

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PurpEL t1_jcn5mq8 wrote

Replying to Ronny_Jotten (#2,253,915)

Can't we finally just have a racially diverse selection of billionaires to exploit and fuck the rest of us!?

Black, white, whatever, the ruling class is the real enemy and we need to wake the fuck up and band together to take them off their thrones.

−1

Bearet t1_jcn8ovr wrote

Why not use solar and batteries? There are no clouds to block the sun, the days are two weeks long and it shines on the whole moon so that if you needed to, you could run on batteries for extra power as needed. Otherwise, do like we do on earth: run a cable from the power source, a solar array to where ever you need the power. And since it doesn't rain, and there is no wind, you will never need to clean the solar panels. Well, maybe once every millennium, but that's all the maintenance you'll ever have to do. Cheap at twice the price.

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Linegod t1_jcna5cm wrote

Moon Base Alpha here we come

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OnslaughtDelete t1_jcnmx4w wrote

Yea ya know, all of space let’s just fuck with that very light object not secured by contrifugal force and no atmosphere to cushion forces, like the mass of a nuclear reactor landing on it, that our climate is highly dependent on. Ok.

−1

davidmlewisjr t1_jcnr31d wrote

Is there a problem with the General Atomics Design(s) from the 50’s & 60’s.

Let them build their Orion, please….

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Badtrainwreck t1_jcnu61v wrote

We will be building nuclear weapons in space in no time!

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SmashTagLives t1_jcny0sn wrote

I think I’ve seen this movie. And if I haven’t, I want to see this movie.

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HoplandTek t1_jcohdqj wrote

Aliens: "humans, deciding they've had enough, devised a plan to nuke space"

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Sun_Chip t1_jcopo0k wrote

What about ownership and property? Is the intent to have public energy for any country that goes to the moon or does this qualify as a land grab? I don’t know space laws.

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waluigishoe t1_jcpbnza wrote

i read a book as a kid about what happens to a world where the moon starts to crack and fall, and this is exactly how i would expect that to start

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Zjoee t1_jcpvz21 wrote

Replying to KuatRZ1 (#2,264,095)

Lmao I got you, I didn't even notice. The Interceptor has long been my favorite starfighter. Back when I played Star Wars Galaxies, all I did was fly around in my Interceptor getting into dogfights.

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orphf13 t1_jcq1hc2 wrote

Replying to avl0 (#2,261,810)

What is? They actually did that and for good reason. Their biggest customer is Airbus and they didn’t want to pay all the import duties into the EU.

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vorpal_potato t1_jcq8iex wrote

Replying to ImUrFrand (#2,256,762)

> terrestrial reactors rely on water for cooling and power generation through conversion to steam... which probably isn't going to work on the moon.

You can safely assume that the engineers working on this have thought of that. There are options that work on the moon. This isn't the first nuclear power plant designed to operate in a vacuum; e.g. NASA built and successfully tested one a few years ago.

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OnslaughtDelete t1_jcqc2sp wrote

Replying to vorpal_potato (#2,264,694)

Sure, but once something is acted upon their will be a change. The moon is also mostly comprised of titanium and lithium, some of the lightest elements. Sure, landing to plant a flag might not do much, but constant travel, or even strong magnetic forces required to generate power may have lasting consequences.

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waluigishoe t1_jcr2r3m wrote

Replying to vorpal_potato (#2,264,798)

hey i didn’t say it was a realistic, science based book. media like movies and books often make anything having to do with the words “nuclear reactor” out to be dangerous, or just a generally negative portrayal so a fantasy disaster isn’t a far out thing to associate it with in those contexts

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vorpal_potato t1_jcrctkq wrote

Replying to waluigishoe (#2,265,968)

Fair enough. :-) Some day I'd love to see someone subvert the trope and show realistic nuclear reactor failure modes, like "some little non-critical thing breaks, causing the reactor to automatically shut down, and then the operators start grumbling about 'xenon-135 transients' and what a hassle it'll be to start the damn thing back up again."

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