Delta Force
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What's the smallest nuclear reactor possible in terms of size and/or weight? What kind of power output could it achieve?
anorlunda said:It sounds like you might be working on a SciFi story. Is that right?
Dennis Jasbey said:No special problem with launch failure--
There will be no radioactivity until the reactor is activated.
That won't happen until the reactor is in orbit or on the moon or on Mars, or on some other deep-space mission.
A somewhat trivial answer is that by definition the power output is zero. So long as you have a nonzero power output, you can make a smaller reactor with smaller power output.Delta Force said:What's the smallest nuclear reactor possible in terms of size and/or weight? What kind of power output could it achieve?
anorlunda said:Their initial power was 62 watts.
Spinnor said:Are you sure of that number?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_1 said:Voyager 1 has three radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs) mounted on a boom. Each MHW-RTG contains 24 pressed plutonium-238 oxide spheres.[19] The RTGs generated about 470 W of electric power at the time of launch, with the remainder being dissipated as waste heat.[20] The power output of the RTGs declines over time (due to the 87.7-year half-life of the fuel and degradation of the thermocouples), but the craft's RTGs will continue to support some of its operations until 2025.[