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 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.
Let me guess he’s going to power his data center with nuke.
Now they need to figure out how to radiate the energy.
@sundogplanets
Of course, Canada knows a thing or 2 about the risks nuclear powered satellites pose.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosmos_954
BOHR (Betavoltaic Orbital High-Reliability) satellite, built by Florida-based City Labs.
Uses tritium, whose beta decay is directly converted to electricity.
Funded by DoD.
Has various applications on Earth as well with very low amounts of tritium.
https://citylabs.net/technology-overview/#tritium
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NanoTritium_batteries
@AkaSci Thanks! I'm not worried about this particular satellite, but with the way things are going in orbit, how long before SpaceX asks for one million nuclear powered AI data centers??? This just seems like a terrible precedent....
@sundogplanets
Note sure how big a tritium battery is needed to produce 100 kW to 1 MW, needed for orbital data centers.
Voyager carried 3 of these RTGs to produce 0.47 kW of power. Different, inefficient (6.5%) technology, used Pu-238.
Perhaps, tritium batteries will be useful for lunar bases and maybe for aux power on satellites.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MHW-RTG
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NanoTritium_batteries
