NASA Tests Nuclear Reactor

"NASA has conducted tests of a nuclear reactor
intended to generate electricity in space for the
first time since 1965, offering hope that humanity
may now belatedly get serious about building
proper, powerful spaceships of the sort long
envisaged in science fiction.

The space agency has just announced the
tests, conducted by engineers from NASA's
Goddard centre in conjunction with Department
of Energy boffins from the Los Alamos national
lab. The effort made use of an experimental
reactor named "Flattop" and was inauspiciously
dubbed Demonstration Using Flattop Fissions
(DUFF)."

See:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/11...engine_trials/

In article ,
wrote:

"NASA has conducted tests of a nuclear reactor
intended to generate electricity in space . . .

The effort made use of an experimental
reactor named "Flattop" and was inauspiciously
dubbed Demonstration Using Flattop Fissions
(DUFF)."

I foresee certain, ahem, difficulties with trying to apply this in the
world outside of Los Alamos.

http://www.osti.gov/bridge/servlets/...S4/6463833.pdf

"Flattop (Fig. 5) is at the opposite extreme from our
unreflected critical assemblies, as it is a thick natural
uranium reflector (0.48-m o.d.) around spherical cores of
uranium (93.2% U-235 and 98.1% U-233) and plutonium
(94.9% Pu-239)."

This isn't a nuclear reactor; it's a see-how-close-you-can-come-to-a-
nuclear-bomb.

--
Kathy Rages