Rolls-Royce is working on a nuclear reactor that would allow mining on the Moon and even Mars. Earlier this year, the company published a joint study with the UK Space Agency on nuclear power options for space rockets.
The company is investigating how a micronuclear reactor could be used to propel rockets at enormous speeds through space and how the technology could then be repurposed to generate energy for mining, drilling, processing, and storage on the Moon and possibly Mars Mining.
” The head of the company’s defense division, Dave Gordon, said that this work is possible thanks to Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk and their space companies.”
He added that Rolls-Royce is the only company on the planet that deals with mechanical, electrical, and nuclear energy, and the nuclear collection He also noted that the company can use its 60 years of experience developing nuclear submarines for the Royal Navy to apply what it has learned to spacecraft because submarines and spaceships are somewhat similar.
Both are “non-air-breathing environments, long-lasting, highly reliable, and very densely powered.”
Gordon finally pointed out that Earth badly needs the rare earths found on other planets and the Moon. Therefore, he believes that the mining of the Moon and Mars will hopefully happen in his lifetime.
Gordon states that these new properties must be obtained using nuclear energy, as solar energy is not an option at these distances. Rolls-Royce is not the only company with such ambitious goals.
Three companies, including Lunar Outpost, HoneyBee Robotics, and Masten Space Systems, are developing a new system for mining lunar water ice using rockets. They hope to reach their goal by 2023.
In addition, a team of researchers from the University of Arizona received a $500,000 grant from NASA to develop methods for space mining. They are developing swarms of autonomous robots that could search and mine the moon for rare earths.
It has also been said that the world’s first tri-millionaires will be those who get rich through asteroid mining. This fact was foreseen by people like the famous futurist Peter Diamandis, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson and the financial company Goldmann Sachs.
No country can claim sovereignty over the moon under the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, but the United States and the Soviet Union brought back samples of lunar soil in the 1960s and 1970s. Nuclear systems have been used on the Moon before. In 1969, the Apollo 12 crew used a generator to generate electricity for scientific instruments.
Gordon, 53, said nuclear power is the obvious choice for power, especially for research: “The further you go from the sun, the less useful solar power is. When you have a dense, reliable source [like nuclear power] , it seems plausible. So we talked to the UK Space Agency about it.
Gordon admitted the project would cost “hundreds of millions of pounds” to complete, but the early stage work could be done for much less.
Rolls-Royce hopes to produce a prototype vehicle before the end of the decade. He says this could lead to the creation of 10,000 jobs in the UK supply chain.
Source: Mail
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