Science Memes

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logs are for quitters (mander.xyz)

submitted 3 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 2 days ago (1 children)

It is perfectly fair in the context of "fuel", a resource used to produce energy. Whether energy is generated via chemical or nuclear reaction is irrelavent in this case.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Yup. If, for example, you're designing a deep space mission, where every gram counts, there's a conversation to be had about whether it's cost effective (and appropriate risk) to send nuclear reactors and fuel aboard those spacecraft.

Or using modern engineering, whether an aircraft carrier should be powered by nuclear fission or internal combustion of hydrocarbons.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Usually space craft have relatively light power needs so why bother with a whole-ass nuclear reactor when an RTG is smaller, lighter, and has no moving parts? They're a pretty common choice for space probes, for example.

https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/plutonium.png

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

We're actually running into shortages of Plutonium 238. Which is seriously compromising deep space missions.