From: utzoo!decvax!cca!OTA@S1-A@sri-unix Newsgroups: net.space Title: Reactors on the moon Article-I.D.: sri-unix.3280 Posted: Wed Sep 15 12:10:25 1982 Received: Thu Sep 16 01:39:25 1982 From: Ted AndersonDate: Wed, 15 Sep 82 12:52:28 EDT From: dyer at NBS-VMS Subject: Reactors on the moon A moon-based reactor has all kinds of plusses going for it. You don't have to worry much about the safety features that are currently plauging the US's public utility reactors -- if there are no people around to be affected by a leak or meltdown, then who cares? The moon is an ideal enviroment for containing leaks because of the lack of atomosphere and prevailing winds to carry the gasses away. A lunar reactor could be /very/ minimal compared to earth-based reactors -- the best shielding might be six or seven miles worth of horizon, with the core and cooling system installed in a crater or pit. Set up a dozen or so 'throw-away' fast breeders on an otherwise empty plain. The reactors would be designed to last only five to ten years, and would be (comparatively) inexpensive. Every once in a while you switch fuel rods and process the plutonium, an operation that could also take place in an inexpensive lunar-based plant. Use the plutonium for mining, for power reactors, or for shoving asteroids around, a-la Dyson's ORION. Hopefully not for bombs. After ten years, or a melt-down, you bury the reactor with rock and moondust and spread radiation warning signs liberally around the area. Since the signs will probably stay around as long as the area stays hot (several million years?), future space-faring nations will be able to see that the burying-gound is an unhealthy place to dig. Gee, you could even have cheap waste-disposal: just launch waste cannisters with a mass-driver, so they would intersect the sun.... -Landon-