On 6/9/11 1:30 PM, Javier Herrero wrote:
I don't think it is feasible... for a cooling reason :)
You've got cold space to radiate to: a few hundred watts/square meter at
300K as I recall. And if you run a reactor which is the heat source for
a steam engine of some sort, and the condenser can run moderately hot,
you can reject a lot of heat. that T^4 factor really helps if you run
the condenser at 100-200C. Glowing red would even be better, if the
materials hold up.
There's a lot of interesting things you can do in space if you have tons
of power. For instance, you can run mechanical refrigeration to pull the
heat away from your electronics and radiate it (from a hot radiator,
which can be small).
The comsats with the dozens of TWTAs use radiation cooling: the
collector end of the tube sticks outside the body.
Usually, in space, your problem is keeping things warm enough, not
keeping them cold. There's more square meters facing cold space than
facing the sun.
Regards,
Javier
El 09/06/2011 22:18, William H. Fite escribió:
I well recall the furor over Cassini-Huygens in 1997 but approval was
ultimately granted and, of course, the launch was without incident. Since
then, New Horizons, Galileo, and Ulysses have been launched with far less
public outcry, despite the fact that all are powered by RTGs. Arguably,
well-designed reactors could be even safer.
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