@[email protected] to NewsEnglish • 17 hours agoGoogle and Kairos sign nuclear reactor deal with aim to power AIarstechnica.comexternal-linkmessage-square14fedilinkarrow-up140arrow-down15 cross-posted to: [email protected]
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minus-squareFlying Squidlink1•15 hours agoQuestion: why aren’t the sort of nuclear power generators we seem to have no problem strapping on to rockets and shooting into space for our probes scalable for larger projects? i.e. with the Cassini Probe?
minus-squareMayor PoopingtonlinkEnglish4•14 hours agoNASA used a radioisotope thermoelectric generator for Cassini, which is more of a battery and does not use nuclear fission to heat a liquid.
minus-squareFlying Squidlink2•14 hours agoBut it generates electricity, right? So couldn’t we scale it up? I admit this is way out of my sphere of knowledge, which is why I’m asking.
minus-squareMayor PoopingtonlinkEnglish3•14 hours agoI’m no expert but did some quick googling. Seems they are very expensive and don’t produce much power, making them useful only for nich situations.
Question: why aren’t the sort of nuclear power generators we seem to have no problem strapping on to rockets and shooting into space for our probes scalable for larger projects?
i.e. with the Cassini Probe?
NASA used a radioisotope thermoelectric generator for Cassini, which is more of a battery and does not use nuclear fission to heat a liquid.
But it generates electricity, right? So couldn’t we scale it up? I admit this is way out of my sphere of knowledge, which is why I’m asking.
I’m no expert but did some quick googling. Seems they are very expensive and don’t produce much power, making them useful only for nich situations.
Thanks!