"Keith Willshaw" wrote in message
...

"Carey Sublette" wrote in message
nk.net...



Hmm, what would be this "present generation" of nuclear reactors? Old
Soviet designs dating from the 70s, never designed for high power output?


No the Topaz 2 designs of the 1990's

More reasonably the SP-100 technology would be the baseline for a new
"present generation", for which detailed design work was done in the
early 90s. This gives about 80 watts/kg for the megawatt power system
under consideration, about par with the present generation of solar cells
near Earth, and an 8-1 advantage over solar cells near Jupiter. Using the
proposed thin film cells you have cited with 400 W/kg output, they have a
5-1 advantage near Earth, but a 2-1 disadvantage near Jupiter.


The DOE has abandoned work on SP-100 - this is a dead duck

Keith

So?

There is also no manned mars mission program.

What is under discussion are feasible technical options for a purely
hypothetical long range program.

A next generation space reactor might even significantly improve over the
SP-100 design approach.