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NASA Glenn Works To Put Nuclear Reactor in Space

NASA rendering of the Kilopower reactor on the lunar surface (NASA)

On Sunday a small engine at the NASA Glenn Research Center set a world record for operating an accumulated time of 12 ½ years.  It’s a version of the Stirling Engine that was invented by a Scottish minister 200 years ago, this year.

Little did Robert Stirling know in 1818 when adding a piston to his heat engine that engineers at NASA would take his idea, add uranium, and make a nuclear reactor to someday provide power on the moon and Mars. 

“This,” says David Poston, chief reactor designer at Los Alamos National Lab,“is the first nuclear powered operation of a new fission reactor concept in the US in 40 years.”  

Poston says the breakthrough came in making the reactor so simple that it largely runs itself and needs no controls. A large one could produce 10 kilowatts of power, not enough to add to our electrical grid but it could have a role on earth.

“Like a mine in northern Canada that isn’t connected to the grid or for the military like remote operations in Afghanistan where they could bring in a reactor like this instead of having to bring truckloads of diesel up.”

Pat McClure of the Los Alamos National Lab said it is safe to launch into space.

“We’re not going to actually turn it on or ‘fission it’ until it’s far far away from the Earth” says McClure. 

“So all we have to worry about is the minor amounts of radioactivity in the core.  So if we were to have a launch accident, which we don’t ever anticipate and would not like, there would be little or no risk to the public.” 

Officials say 4 reactors would be grouped to provide up to 40 kilowatts of power for future stations on the surface of the moon or Mars. 

It's all very simple.  The Kilopower reactor "wants to" maintain a constant temperature. (Mark Urycki/ideastream)

Lead Engineer Marc Gibson says the reactor would be set up robotically on the surface.  Only after it creates fuel from hydrogen and oxygen on the site would astronauts arrive. 

“Initially what we think is you set the power systems on the surface. You start producing the propellant,   if you’re going to produce return propellant.  And then once you fill all the propellant in storage tanks then you send the humans there, knowing that they have the fuel to get back.”   

The reactor itself could be used to propel spacecraft via ion propulsion. 

Officials say once the fission reactors are turned on they can self-regulate and astronauts won’t need to control them.