[AR] nuclear-safe (was Re: Faster Space Transport?)
- From: Henry Spencer <hspencer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: Arocket List <arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 30 Aug 2019 16:21:52 -0400 (EDT)
On Fri, 30 Aug 2019, Peter Fairbrother wrote:
reasonable agreement: no operation below 600-800km (depending on the
details), no final disposal below 1000km or so.
Is that for a RTG or a reactor? Is there a difference? Does size matter?
That's for a reactor. Size does matter to some extent, with bigger
systems pushed a bit higher up.
RTGs are a rather different case, with quite small radiation output by
comparison, and cores designed to survive worst-case reentry intact. I'm
not aware of any specific consensus rules for them, but that may be partly
because the issue hasn't come up much -- it's been many years since people
seriously considered using RTGs in LEO. (It was done occasionally, in the
early days, when solar cells were primitive and batteries were grossly
heavy. The combination of more efficient cells and better batteries made
RTGs quite uncompetitive on both mass and cost by maybe 1970.)
Henry
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