Why didn't we design shuttles to use nukereactor
- Thread starter TEH BABA
- Start date
I'm sure a nuclear reactor would have worked out just great when the Challenger and Columbia blew up.
Now, now . . . He's got a point. If Challenger and/or Columbia would have had nuclear reactors on board, it would have said "fuck" to "wacky environmentalists" AND a hell of a lot of OTHER people too.
People in Florida though, so mostly very old - so it wouldn't have been THAT bad!
T'Bonz lives there...
Lovely place Florida...
People in Florida though, so mostly very old - so it wouldn't have been THAT bad!
Except that neither ship got back to Florida.... they broke up over the Southwest and mainly Texas.
They'd be celebrating.I'm not one much for stirring up controversy but this is too relevant to the discussion.
The Apollo 13 lunar module had an RTG containing 3.9 kg of plutonium that was intended to be left on the Moon to power the ALSEP. Well, as we all know things didn't go according to plan. The lunar module, with the RTG, ended up re-entering Earth's atmosphere over the Pacific. The RTG is supposed to be designed to survive re-entry so apparently it's still intact on the Pacific Ocean floor today. Last I heard it hasn't been recovered.
Robert
The Apollo 13 lunar module had an RTG containing 3.9 kg of plutonium that was intended to be left on the Moon to power the ALSEP. Well, as we all know things didn't go according to plan. The lunar module, with the RTG, ended up re-entering Earth's atmosphere over the Pacific. The RTG is supposed to be designed to survive re-entry so apparently it's still intact on the Pacific Ocean floor today. Last I heard it hasn't been recovered.
Robert
Is that plutonium enriched enough to use in a bomb? If so, we better get it before a terrorist group does.
I'm not sure the term 'enrich' applies to plutonium; I've only seen it used in connection with uranium which is to increase the percentage of the isotope U-235 in uranium.
The plutonium used in RTGs is the isotope Pu-238 which is not fissionable. The isotope that is fissionable and used for nuclear weapons is Pu-239.
Both of these isotopes are not present naturally on Earth; they both have to be synthesized from natural uranium. As far as I can tell both are produced 'nearly pure' when they're sythesized. In reading up on this I saw no mention of making Pu-239 from Pu-238. But then both are rare commodities; ordinarily it would make no sense using one to make the other when both can be made from natural uranium.
So I have no idea if you can convert Pu-238 to Pu-239. Seems simple enough, just slap another neutron onto that Pu-238 atom and you've got your fissionable Pu-239. But things usually aren't that simple in nuclear physics.
Robert
'Course, the amount of fissionables or radioactives dumped into the oceans by the space programs is bound to be minuscule compared with the amount dumped by the various navies (plenty of both Soviet, Russian and American nuclear submarine reactors and nuclear torpedo warheads still down there, plus all those nuclear depth charges that fell accidentally overboard or were fired in error and silenced to nonexistence afterwards), or by people wanting to get rid of radioactive waste in general (any civilized nation would have a heap of low-active stuff from hospitals and the like that they'd want to get rid of, and the oceans are deep).
Timo Saloniemi
Timo Saloniemi
Okay, how do you propose safeguarding the nuclear material should an explosion take place in the atmosphere (e.g., Challenger and Columbia)?
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