NASA Nukeships for OffWorld Exploration?

NASA is looking at bringing nuclear power to other planets. It's an intelligent option, perfectly suited to off-world exploration, and is being rigorously tested - so look forward to headlines screaming "NASA NUKING SPACE SHOCKER OUTRAGE!"


The thing to remember is NASA aren't idiots - they are literally an organization of rocket scientists, and nuclear power is an excellent option for offworld energy. The technology is well known, it's the most power bang per fuel mass buck available, and the small size and off-world nature of any space reactors means that's the only "bang" there could actually be. And in case you haven't noticed, off-world exploration is the most incredible and envelope-pushing mission mankind is capable of. It would be imbecilic to rule anything out.

The system works off a Stirling engine, one of the original heat engines (built as a rival to steam designs) which operates off the difference between a hot and cold location. The small nuclear fission pile provides the heat, conducted by liquid metal, and the cold is conveniently provided by being in space - or at the very least, being on a planet that's not as hot as nuclear reactions. The liquid metal is a sodium potassium mixture, and yes, this does mean that NASA are not only cooler than the T1000 but are actually using it to do work.

The system still needs a radiator, a forty-by-sixty meter cooling fin which will get rid of excess heat. It's important to remember that a heat engine doesn't convert hot into electricity - "hot" isn't actually a thing, and the point of the nuclear power is to provide a constant high temperature region. If you let the temperature get to high you'll run into all sorts of awful melting things, especially in space - it's extremely capable of cold, but there's no conduction or convection, so it's extremely easy to overheat if you don't work to radiate.

Solar power is perfect for some space applications but not everything we want to do lives in the light (or can afford the weight of batteries to store excess power for night-side operations). Until we come up with something better, nuclear power is our only option if we don't want to become reverse-vampires who have to hide in the sunshine. The Fission Surface Power (FSP) project has tested all the parts of this power source individually and is gearing up for full scale trials in 2014.

But don't let little things like logic, strict controls, or rigorous testing of proven hardware distract you. Look forward to lunacy as soon as news of nuclear hits the anti-everything crowd, and use it to discriminate between intelligent environmental activists and those who hear buzzwords and start screaming. Nuclear weaponry is undeniably the scariest thing we've ever achieved, and power plants need the very strictest of standards, it's true - but surely even if you hate nuclear material you'd be in favor of getting it off the planet?