Well that’s dumb. Solar power during the very long day could power operations and charge batteries for ops during the long night. Trump’s admin is so anti-renewables that they’d rather build a nuke plant than take advantage of solar. I’m only surprised they aren’t trying to figure out how to build a coal plant up there.
A small reactor like what we use in submarines or our aircraft carriers would probably be the best tool for the job on the moon. They are small and require minimal maintenance (within their fairly long lifespan) and they produce enormous amounts of power.
How much weight in solar panels would it take to produce what a reactor could?
Would a single panel on the moon last more than 20 years?
How do we decommission panels on the moon?
(forgot about batteries)… all of these things IDEALLY will come back down to Earth some day so the fewer things we put on the moon in the first place the better
And we can just shoot the spent fuel into the sun!
Having enough batteries to survive two weeks of darkness would weigh a lot more than a nuclear reactor.
My first thought was, that is pretty awesome.
After thinking about it and reading your comment my thoughts are, don’t nuclear reactors on earth take years to build? This process seems extremely difficult. Solar power makes so much sense.
Please don’t fuck up the moon. It’s big and boring but it does a lot by just being there and doing “nothing”.
I expect the tides to cease and a lot of meteor showers in the future.
Lol, the US is currently contracting SpaceX, best known for making really cool, futuristic and expensive bombs.
By fast-track do they mean 500 years instead of 1000?
I feel that’s not fair to some of the engineers at SpaceX. A prior head of NASA is quoted multiple times saying reusable first stages would be impossible, only 5-10 years before SpaceX landed 2 falcon heavy first stages simultaneously. Space is hard. A lot of test and production space vehicles do explode. Several of the challenger missions for example. Clearly Elon is a rube, but that doesn’t imply everyone under him is… So maybe just try to make your point without disrespecting and disregarding the work of some of the brightest engineers on the planet?
It is hard, yet the space shuttle program did just fine and didn’t burn 3 billion dollars of tax payer money for spacex to say “well, it got off the launch pad before exploding, success!”
No hate to the engineers there, i’m sure any good they do is overshadowed by the nazi drug addict that employees them.
Oh come on, stop bashing SpaceX. They’ve been quite successful at roasting a banana over the Indian ocean, how many companies can make that claim?
No honey the US is falling apart but it is nice to have dreams.
But why?
Blow the Moon.
Okaaaaayyy…
Don’t even worry about it
