Modern science dreams of space colonies. Sooner or later, Mars, the Moon and other planetary objects in our solar system will be inhabited by humans. You can be sure of this. Of course, many obstacles and problems stand in the way of the implementation of these plans: space radiation, the likelihood of health problems during long space flights, a harsh environment, and a lack of water and oxygen. Be that as it may, scientists are confident that they will be able to deal with all these difficulties. The most urgent question now is where to get energy to power the colony?
After all, energy is required not only in order to create conditions suitable for the habitation of colonists, but also so that people, if possible, could return back to Earth. Take Mars, for example. We cannot just send people there to settle, and follow them with a spaceship filled exclusively with fuel for the flight back home. This is considered an extremely stupid idea and a waste of resources. Not only will you need to build a special space "tanker" filled with fuel, but you will also have to look for an opportunity to safely launch the whole thing into space. That is, it turns out that the colonists will need a source of energy with which they can produce both oxygen and fuel for their spacecraft.
Where can one find an efficient and possibly compact energy source for an extraterrestrial colony? Los Alamos National Laboratory has one. More precisely, Los Alamos National Laboratory, in collaboration with the aerospace agency NASA, is currently developing it and very much hopes that one day such installations will be used to power the Martian, lunar and other space colonies.
The beauty of a small nuclear reactor called Kilopower is its simplicity. It has only a few moving parts and is based on heat conduction technology, which was invented at Los Alamos in 1963 and was used in one of the variants of the Stirling engine.
It works as follows. Liquid moves inside the closed heat pipe around the reactor. Under the influence of the heat of the reactor, the liquid turns into steam, on the basis of which the Stirling engine works. There is a piston inside the engine, which begins to move from the gas pressure created inside it. The piston is connected to a generator that produces electricity. Several such devices, working in tandem, can provide a very reliable source of electricity that can be used for a variety of purposes in various space missions and tasks, including the conquest of planetary bodies like the moons of Jupiter and Saturn.
At the moment, the prototype of a compact reactor is capable of producing from 1 kWh - enough to power some toaster - up to 10 kWh. For the efficient operation of a dwelling on Mars and the creation of fuel, approximately 40 kWh is required. It is likely that NASA will send several (4-5) such reactors to the planet at once. Fortunately, they are compact.
The advantage of nuclear energy over other sources is undeniable. First, it solves the problem of weight and reliability. Other energy sources require a lot of fuel (which makes them heavy) or are dependent on climatic and seasonal conditions. For example, solar energy requires, reasonably, constant access to sunlight. In the conditions of Mars, such a luxury may be unaffordable, since there, too, the day changes to night, sometimes for several months. In addition, a more careful selection of the site of the foundation of the colony plays an important role in this, since in some regions of the Red Planet there are strong dust storms, again, sometimes lasting several months. In the end, solar panels and batteries weigh a lot, therefore, will require launching a rocket that is too heavy, which, in turn,will require the use of a very large amount of fuel. Expensive. Very expensive. A nuclear reactor does not matter at what time of day or under what weather conditions it works.
Experiments and testing of the Kilopower reactor began at the end of last year and are taking place at the nuclear test site in Nevada (USA). They will end with tests at full temperature load this spring. This, of course, does not mean that after that we will be able to immediately go to conquer other worlds, but the final tests will show which next vector of development should be chosen to approach this day.
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In addition to NASA, the Glenn Research Center, Marshall Space Center, Y-12 National Security Center, as well as NASA contractors, SunPower and Advanced Cooling Technologies are participating in the reactor development project.
Nikolay Khizhnyak