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David Kilgannon

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Aerospace vehicles utilizing Thorium as a fuel source.

Thorium is an exceedingly abundant and potent energy source, which is also much more stable than uranium, with a VERY long half-life. Furthermore, with the fact that lighter reactors can be used to extract energy from Thorium, it would allow for planes and spaceships that could easily remain in the sky for extraordinary durations, as well as leave the planet and go colonize and establish mining locations in outer space, which, if conducted, is only limited by the power of the propulsion systems, which would probably be ion thrusters.

I would like to hear your thoughts.

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Topics: Aerospace Aerospace Engineering Colonization exploration mining nuclear energy
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    Krisztián Pintér 200+

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    TED Translator
    Jan 18 2012: thorium fueled vehicles has a serious problem, namely they quickly get greenpeace activists chained to them.

    • David Kilgannon

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      Jan 18 2012: First of all, thank you for the chuckle. Second, I think that Greenpeace will be better off letting mankind off the planet, and leaving nature to nurture her home again. Without us, the damage will recover.
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        verita nuda

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        Jan 19 2012: True it made me smile as well. Though lumping all those who support Greenpeace or even a 'greener' agenda should not be written off. Baroness Worthington ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baroness_Worthington) is a perfect example of why enlightened individuals need to be on board .

        That being said , as the original premise for the MSR was supposedly in the aeronautics industry seems only fitting to send the thing into space. However they are still many constraints you have to take into account when using a space bound reactor. I feel Kirk will prolly have done a lot of research on this given his background but I suspect it is not as trivial as we might think. I think the idea of it being used to power moon bases though is a no brainer. With a moon base it makes launching further deep space missions a lot more cost effective and practical.
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