mbrowne5061
Posts: 2,161 +1,363
Yeah I got the image of like old school water wheels, like from the back of boats, tons of surface area to catch as much material as possible. Nuclear or sometime type of oxygen burner system ( pulling oxygen down from the atmosphere) to create energy would be the best solution.
There is literally more oxygen in the ground on Mars than there is in the atmosphere. Even then - ignoring that Oxygen is just the catalyst to an energy releasing reaction, and not a fuel source itself - why 'burn' your rocket fuel and air supply in order to power your base, generate more air, and generate more rocket fuel (also ignoring the obvious compounding inefficiencies in that)?
For reference, this XKCD strip does actually drive the point home about energy densities:
https://xkcd.com/1162/
The other fuels he compares Uranium to all depend on a reaction with oxygen to release their energy. Uranium does not. In this light, Uranium becomes the obvious power choice for large scale or long-duration space flight and planetary missions.
The Uranium does get spread over a large area, but its only a kilo or two in space craft design - not the several hundred in a concentrated area in commercial design. Still not ideal or desirable, but not as bad. For this reason, payloads requiring a nuclear component are heavily reviewed through all stages from concept to launch by the DOE, DOD, EPA, and even some UN organizations for the 'extra special' payloads.Out of curiosity, if this was on a rockets payload and the rocket goes boom on the launchpad, or part way up to orbit (As so happens every now and then), would this not possibly send pieces of uranium over a large area?
We have launched nuclear reactors before, both the voyagers were powered by a nuclear reactors that ran off plutonium 238. There is always going to be a risk, but these are relatively small reactors, not a lot of uranium and the uranium may not actually separate in the explosion (dense stuff) so nothing really spreads.
Don't forget Curiosity and New Horizons. They have nukes too, don't know what isotopes off the top of my head though.