Russia working on space nuclear reactor

[mythbusters844]

Yay! As others have stated before, I hope that this will be the first step in developing reactors for interplanetary travel . I love Russia...

I can already imagine the western media's reaction...

"RUSSIA DEVELOPING NUCLEAR DEVICE TO LAUNCH INTO ORBIT!"

[NERVAfan]

Wow! I had thought uranium was always radioactive. Its being usually-harmless better explains why unshielded workers can handle fuel rods and the Los Alamos team survived unless they were reckless.

Of course, our descendants might, in their greater learning and wisdom, consider our orbital ambitions with the bespoke nuclear reactor absolutely Kerbal.

-Duxwing

xenomorph555 is right, uranium IS radioactive (all elements heavier than lead* have no stable isotopes). But it is much less radioactive than the fission products with short half-lives. A nuclear reactor will be enriched uranium and thus more radioactive than a random lump of uranium, but even uranium-235 has a half-life of 703.8 million years (as opposed to, say, 87.7 years for the plutonium-238 in Curiosity's RTG).

*bismuth-209, though, is stable-for-all-practical-purposes (half-life of about 20 quintillion years)

RTGs are launched fairly regularly, so launching a not-yet-used reactor doesn't sound that scary to me (although the Russian Proton rocket has had some issues recently...)

IMO we as a society are way more concerned about nuclear/radiation stuff than the risk really justifies, compared to how we react to, say, air pollution from coal power plants (which probably leads to far, far more deaths from respiratory problems every month than the Chernobyl accident).

EDIT: It would be interesting to know how the radioactivity of the amount of uranium in this reactor (in Curies) compares to that of the plutonium in an RTG.

[Nuke]

Yay! As others have stated before, I hope that this will be the first step in developing reactors for interplanetary travel . I love Russia...

I can already imagine the western media's reaction...

"RUSSIA DEVELOPING NUCLEAR DEVICE TO LAUNCH INTO ORBIT!"

THIS IS OUTRAGEOUS! WE SHOULD LAUNCH OUR OWN NUCLEAR DEVICES INTO ORBIT AND SHOW THE WORLD THAT AMERICA WORKS!

im all for another cold war.

[NERVAfan]

Uranium is radioactive but on a tiny unmeasurable scale.

That is a bit of an overstatement, though. Even depleted uranium's radioactivity is definitely measurable with a Geiger counter.

Edited September 30, 2014 by NERVAfan
remove accidentally quoted post

[YourEverydayWaffle]

Ok, I think we can agree uranium should be secured and would not devastate whatever lay downrange should the rocket fail.

The next important questions are:

1) Who should launch uranium into orbit? Whoever does must be competent-enough to launch it correctly and neutral-enough not to weaponize an 'accident'.

2) How should public relations be managed? Funding and acceptance necessitate making the public understand that our operations are safe and benefit them.

3) How many launches should occur? Launching often makes launching usual and increases the number of failure points.

-Duxwing

I feel like the fuel should be sent up in small, well-shielded amounts that are, most importantly, equipped with a chute (and maybe something buoyant if it were to be over the ocean somewhere), as to prevent the payload from turning into any sort of a radioactive "meteorite" if things went wrong. I think public relations will always be an issue with any sort of nuclear energy scheme. Most of the general public will only see the worst parts of nuclear energy in the past, like Chernobyl and Fukushima, and will stick with that. IT's REALLY hard to avoid, but hopefully we will someday eliminate those misconceptions with the power of science!.

As few launches as possible would be ideal, but always have to test things, and that takes a lot of tries. The biggest issue that I could think of would be the functioning life of the reactor. I'm no expert on NERVA engines, but I do know that fission has a tendency to make some nasty decay products that can potentially get into other parts of the reactor. You'd have to make a lot of the on board electronics radiation-proof, as they are fairly fragile when radiation comes along. The robots that the Soviets used to help clean up Chernobyl often would just stop working mid-mission, since the radiation was so intense. They actually used the robot that was originally for a lunar mission (meant to handle a ton of cosmic radiation), and it bugged out and drove off of the roof. When you pack all of that equipment into such a small space, it's probably gonna be an issue.

[Sky_walker]

That is a bit of an overstatement, though. Even depleted uranium's radioactivity is definitely measurable with a Geiger counter.

I recommend you once grab Geiger counter and have a walk around the town. Or if you're heating your house with coal - try to measure a pile of it.

[TheFlyingPigs]

I wonder where they will store the nuclear waste

Maybe they jettison the waste and it falls on certain countries.

Dun Dun Dun

[magnemoe]

Ok, I think we can agree uranium should be secured and would not devastate whatever lay downrange should the rocket fail.

The next important questions are:

1) Who should launch uranium into orbit? Whoever does must be competent-enough to launch it correctly and neutral-enough not to weaponize an 'accident'.

2) How should public relations be managed? Funding and acceptance necessitate making the public understand that our operations are safe and benefit them.

3) How many launches should occur? Launching often makes launching usual and increases the number of failure points.

-Duxwing

As other said the issues of it falling down during launch is negligible, outside of an worst case pad explosion the parts fall down where stages fall down anyway. The uranium would be solid blocks and would be recovered, impact would be much like an plane crash, I would separate reactor from upper stage and other fuel to avoid fire on ground.

Note that stuff like monopropelant is very toxic but this has never been much of a problem.

You can not weaponize an reactor, modifying your car reach orbit is far easier and cheaper.

Russia simply ignore the critic, does not need US and European special interest groups approval.

More interesting about performance and purpose of this. Even if just a test system it would be fun to merge with an powerful ion engine and look at some asteroids.

Again if its a test system it might not produce much power.

[magnemoe]

I recommend you once grab Geiger counter and have a walk around the town. Or if you're heating your house with coal - try to measure a pile of it.

Remember we tried an Geiger counter at school, most was disappointed then it did not reacted then they breathed at it.

Only thing it reacted on past the background radiation was the samples.

[Streetwind]

There's an xkcd for everything: https://xkcd.com/radiation/

[TheSaint]

You folks do realize that the Soviet Union/Russia has already sent nuclear reactors into space. Not RTGs, real honest-to-God fission reactors. Over 30 of them, in fact.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US-A

Their safety record was not exactly stellar, but somehow the vast majority of us were born with all our digits. In fact, the biggest problem they generated was orbital debris, apparently when they ejected their reactor cores into their graveyard orbits they leaked a great deal of liquid metal coolant, much of which remains in LEO.

[peadar1987]

Neutron radiation? That only really happens during fission, you'd have to get a reaction for that to occur. But I do agree with you about the radiation levels of uranium. I own a geiger counter, and even in granite (3-5 parts per million uranium), I get about 140 uSv/h (micro Sieverts per hour), compared to only 15 uSv/h of normal background radiation. It is definitely something that is fairly radioactive (fuel grade uranium is something like 2000 ppm, not totally sure), especially when refined.

It really depends on the reactor. The UK's CO2-cooled, graphite-moderated AGRs I have worked with enrich to about 3.5% (Although the enrichment varies per reactor, and for where in the core the fuel rod is going to go). Heavy water moderated reactors, like the CANDU, run on natural uranium.

The largest single-day dose I got was from working on a fuel build, and it was, if I remember correctly, 6 uSv. I don't know where you're living that's registering 15uSv/hr, but even on an airliner, you're usually looking at less than 1uSV/hr. You might want to check the calibration on your Geiger counter.

To put all of this into perspective, the lowest dose clearly linked to any increased risk of cancer is 100mSV. That's 100,000uSv.

[artwhaley]

The part of RORSAT (US-A) that terrifies me is that they considered an orbit with a thousand year decay to be 'good enough' for the graveyard. The cores will certainly not be rendered safe by then. Perhaps they just couldn't imagine any possible future where everyone WON'T be wearing radiation suits 24/7 in a thousand years? Or they're confident that in a thousand years snagging reactor cores from a decaying orbit and slinging them back out into space will be a trivial task for an unmanned ship? Both of those things MAY WELL be true... but still... the philosophy of handling a 50,000 year problem with a 1,000 year solution is a little unnerving.

I hope with this new wave of reactors that they plan to do something more farsighted at the end of life!

[Idobox]

One big question about nukes in space: how are they dealing with the cooling?

To get a decent efficiency out of your reactor, you need to keep a big temperature gradient, and with something emitting MW, radiation would take quite a bit of surface.

So do they have massive radiators? do they work with small with small gradients and low efficiency?

I imagine a hybrid NTR/generator could use reaction mass as a heatsink too, but that doesn't appear to be what they're working on.

[xenomorph555]

You folks do realize that the Soviet Union/Russia has already sent nuclear reactors into space. Not RTGs, real honest-to-God fission reactors. Over 30 of them, in fact.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US-A

Their safety record was not exactly stellar, but somehow the vast majority of us were born with all our digits. In fact, the biggest problem they generated was orbital debris, apparently when they ejected their reactor cores into their graveyard orbits they leaked a great deal of liquid metal coolant, much of which remains in LEO.

Yes, I did point this out a tiny bit early in the thread that the Russians have good experience with space reactors, of course the Rorsat reactors were rather primitive but at least they had actual out of testing experience using them for stuff. I should also point out the TOPAZ reactor project, this was the next reactor they created and was much safer and better overall then the rorsat generator. In fact the TOPAZ was capable of generating 10kw (1/3rd of all the iss solar panels combined ) and lasted 6 months, they even used one on a satellite in combination with an electric thruster.

The part of RORSAT (US-A) that terrifies me is that they considered an orbit with a thousand year decay to be 'good enough' for the graveyard. The cores will certainly not be rendered safe by then. Perhaps they just couldn't imagine any possible future where everyone WON'T be wearing radiation suits 24/7 in a thousand years? Or they're confident that in a thousand years snagging reactor cores from a decaying orbit and slinging them back out into space will be a trivial task for an unmanned ship? Both of those things MAY WELL be true... but still... the philosophy of handling a 50,000 year problem with a 1,000 year solution is a little unnerving.

I hope with this new wave of reactors that they plan to do something more farsighted at the end of life!

We won't be around in 1000 years. Properly not anyway...

One big question about nukes in space: how are they dealing with the cooling?

To get a decent efficiency out of your reactor, you need to keep a big temperature gradient, and with something emitting MW, radiation would take quite a bit of surface.

So do they have massive radiators? do they work with small with small gradients and low efficiency?

I imagine a hybrid NTR/generator could use reaction mass as a heatsink too, but that doesn't appear to be what they're working on.

The rorsat reactors and topaz reactors were all self contained and had no extended radiators instead having internal coolant flow systems, this is likely because the directly converted heat into electricity my guess is flushing heat into space would be inefficient. But you could do that, it might generate more power.

[xenomorph555]

Ok, I think we can agree uranium should be secured and would not devastate whatever lay downrange should the rocket fail.

The next important questions are:

1) Who should launch uranium into orbit? Whoever does must be competent-enough to launch it correctly and neutral-enough not to weaponize an 'accident'.

2) How should public relations be managed? Funding and acceptance necessitate making the public understand that our operations are safe and benefit them.

3) How many launches should occur? Launching often makes launching usual and increases the number of failure points.

-Duxwing

1. I say launch the whole reactor with whatever you have got and fully fuelled but NOT ACTIVATED! As for who, I guess the country doing the mission, or if we are doing a whole global thing then either US or China, both are incredibly reliable with launch's.

2. Talk about all the good things it will bring us and talk about contingency plans and of how it's safe. Then finish with history lesson of space reactors, BOOM!! PUBLIC EDUCATED!! Then await greenpeaces response but do not give a damn about it.

3. With the reactor complete only 1 launch required.

[Idobox]

The rorsat reactors and topaz reactors were all self contained and had no extended radiators instead having internal coolant flow systems, this is likely because the directly converted heat into electricity my guess is flushing heat into space would be inefficient. But you could do that, it might generate more power.

You still have to flush heat into space. The Seebeck-Peltier effect used in RTGs and things like Topaz need a temperature difference to work. It's a fundamental rule of thermodynamics: you can't extract energy from heat (see Maxwell's demon), you need a gradient.

The early reactors simply used the shell of the craft as a radiator, which probably limited the efficiency, but that was the only option in low orbit.

[xenomorph555]

You still have to flush heat into space. The Seebeck-Peltier effect used in RTGs and things like Topaz need a temperature difference to work. It's a fundamental rule of thermodynamics: you can't extract energy from heat (see Maxwell's demon), you need a gradient.

The early reactors simply used the shell of the craft as a radiator, which probably limited the efficiency, but that was the only option in low orbit.

Ah I see sorry, unfortunately I can't answer how topaz flushed heat out, maybe it's shell like rorsat.

[Kryten]

The black funnelly thing on Topaz is a radiator, the actual reactor is just the bit at the very top. SNAP-10A used the same basic design.

[xenomorph555]

Wow, small container, massive power!

[-Velocity-]

Uranium is pretty radioactive, as anybody who's had the classic demonstration with a bit of pitchblende (uranium ore) and a Geiger counter in school can testify. It's not face-meltingly dangerous, sure, but it's not something you'd want to handle without gloves or breath the dust of.

What you aren't going to get without a reaction having happened are neutron and hard gamma radiation; highly damaging, though to shield against, and neutron irradiation can cause materials to themselves become radioactive.

Uranium is highly chemically toxic, besides being a low-level radiological hazard. I kinda thought that the toxicity of uranium chemically was actually worse than its radiological hazards, but I could be wrong.

[Guest]

Considering big puddle of hydrazine around crash site, uranium toxicity or radioactivity is not first thing you should be worried about

[xenomorph555]

Considering big puddle of hydrazine around crash site, uranium toxicity or radioactivity is not first thing you should be worried about

That will not be a problem when angara 5 replaces proton.

[Kryten]

Considering big puddle of hydrazine around crash site, uranium toxicity or radioactivity is not first thing you should be worried about

Hydrazine is too unstable to be a major threat; it'll break down in moist air, and heavy rain will pretty effectively decontaminate a site.

[Nuke]

The rorsat reactors and topaz reactors were all self contained and had no extended radiators instead having internal coolant flow systems, this is likely because the directly converted heat into electricity my guess is flushing heat into space would be inefficient. But you could do that, it might generate more power.

russians seem to be pretty good with thermionic converters. less efficient than a brayton cycle, better than arrays of thermocouples.