HAHAHA FUCK SpaceX just launched a nuclear powered satellite.
Sounds like this particular satellite is tiny and doesn't have a lot of tritium on board but HOLY SHIT this is a bad precedent.
@sundogplanets What fun imagining one of the rockets that take up those satellites blowing up over a populated area, or any other area for that matter.
@sundogplanets Thanks for sharing. The risk from possible launch failure alone is concerning and that's just the tip of the iceberg. 😩
@sundogplanets I always wonder how they will handle the cooling when running nuclear power in space, espescially in sci-fi but now in reality.
What could possibly go wrong…
@sundogplanets I love how the right hand part of the nuclear satellite seems to be made up of an IKEA drawer section attached to one of those stovetop power connectors.
@sundogplanets OH WONDERFUL let's have radionuclides constantly dispersed into the upper atmosphere by disintegrating SpaceX satellites instead of just Al2O3 and TiO2 and whatever else
@sundogplanets How safe is this thing going to be if it burns up in the atmosphere? Will it spread radioactive material?
@sundogplanets
Dammit can't read the page with an adblocker on.
@sundogplanets I think I heard about this before and thought it was neat...
...until I realised there's only so much you can do about a reactor meltdown from LEO. And that's before you consider the notoriety of SpaceX satellites falling from the sky...
His super-power is inching forward into everything until he can't be extracted from the whole.
He is trying to kill as many of us, as many ways as possible and he just keeps getting bonuses to do it by people convinced they'll get to spend their share of the take and live it out before he gets to them.
@sundogplanets 1st ever? Like, nobody made specifically a commercial one that works with nuclear or is it just the first spacex one or wtf?
@sundogplanets
Also, NASA has active programs for -
- Space Nuclear Propulsion
- Lunar Surface Fission Reactor (100 kW)
https://www.nasa.gov/space-technology-mission-directorate/tdm/space-nuclear-propulsion/
https://www.nasa.gov/mission/space-reactor-1-freedom/
https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-department-of-energy-to-develop-lunar-surface-reactor-by-2030/
@sundogplanets
Tritium has a half-life of 12ish years and, more importantly, the beta particles (electrons) can only travel a fraction of an inch in air and cannot penetrate the dead layers of your skin.
