Traveling Wave Reactor: New Possible Source of Energy and Propulsion for the Goldilocks Mission Ships

Traveling Wave Reactor. Source: earth2tech.comToday's nuclear reactors provide clean, efficient and continuous power generation with a lifetime between 30-40 years save for their expensive radioisotope fuels, refueling and maintenance every two years and the amount of radioactive waste produced. A special kind of fission reactor called the traveling wave reactor (TWR) reduces the volume of uranium fuel as well as the need for refueling and maintenance. The TWR  actually uses conventional reactor radioactive by-products and converts it to fuel it can use using only a small amount of enriched uranium to start the fission process. This means that the TWR can even use its own waste products and run theoretically for a hundred years or more before refueling! It can provide the energy necessary to power the Goldilocks Mission ships, specially if the space travel duration reaches hundreds of years.

So how does it work? The name “traveling wave” comes from the process used in the reactor itself. Using depleted uranium core (spent nuclear fuel or any other nonfissile material), a “wave” that moves at a rate of about one centimeter per year travels through the core and slowly transforms it into plutonium which can then proceed with nuclear fission. The principle behind the TWR is nuclear transmutation.

Facebook!Slashdot!StumbleUpon!Newsvine!AddThis Social Bookmark Button

Finding Habitable Exoplanets: Habcat to Biosignatures

Credit: David A. Aguilar (Harvard-Smithsonian CfA)Some of us are very much familiar with the basic requirement for an exoplanet to be counted as habitable: it must reside in the habitable zone of its star. The star should favorably be in the same class as our sun in the main sequence although studies show that red dwarfs could host them as well. As such, much focus is given to searching and filing a catalogue for these types of stars. Enter the HabCat, or the Catalog of Nearby Habitable Systems, a list of about 17,129 stars made by astronomers Margaret Turnbull and Jill Tarter in 2002.

This list came from a much longer list of stars generated by the Hipparcos mission from 1989 to 1993 which took astronometric observations from 118,000 stars with the results published in 1997. Turnbill and Tarter studied this long list of stars to come up with the HabCat, a list of stars that are believed to possess characteristics suitable for life to inhabit the “goldilocks zone” of its planetary systems. It was further narrowed down to the nearest 5,000 stars closest to us in about a 100 light year distance. Turnbull moved on further to identify ten stars in 2006 that have a better likelihood of hosting habitable planets.

Facebook!Slashdot!StumbleUpon!Newsvine!AddThis Social Bookmark Button

More exoplanets, but where is Goldilocks?

Credits: NASAAlmost nine months after Kepler space telescope launched to space, scientists reveal the first five extrasolar planets discoveries that hopes to inspire us that habitable exoplanets are indeed on the way. Although these exoplanets were not really the type that Kepler was created for to detect, the success of finding them proves that scientists are finally on the verge of nailing the first habitable exoplanet.

Kepler, the so called planet-hunter, was launched in March 7, 2009 after several delays due to NASA budget cuts. Its mission is to find any earth-size exoplanet that lie within the habitable zone of stars, the well-known Goldilocks planet. Unlike the Hubble space telescope, Kepler's gears were fine tuned to detect smaller planets and possess a wider field of view for detecting planetary transits, an event where an exoplanet passes in front of its star. Kepler, however, has the opportunity to observe it a couple of times more than Hubble. In this way it observes the the degree of reduction of brightness of the star from whence the diameter of the exoplanet is derived.

Facebook!Slashdot!StumbleUpon!Newsvine!AddThis Social Bookmark Button

Carbon Nanotubes: Notable Developments of 2009

Ever since scientists discovered the incredulous tensile strength of carbon nanotubes and its unique properties, the wonder material has found numerous applications in various technologies but has yet to fulfill its part in what made it famous the first time, the space elevator. Much research has been done in the last two decades and still continuing, for carbon nanotubes (CNT) do hold a lot of promise in its home niche, nanoscience and nanotechnology. It may seem a bit ironic then for it to be the main component to what may be the world's gigantic superstructure, one that pierces through the stratosphere and even go beyond where most satellites orbit the earth. For all its worth, carbon nanotubes are still the best uncontested theoretical candidates for constructing the space elevator cable.

It's been called a lot of things like the “ribbon” and “tether” but the basic design lies on the simple fact that the cable must be strong enough to support its own weight and withstand tensile forces that would break and shatter even the strongest steel. To illustrate that fact, a carbon nanotube “ribbon”  which weighs a sixth that of steel of the same dimension is significantly stronger one hundred times over. This property is in itself a perfect testament to the material's incredible attributes which make it a fitting component in the space elevator cable.

Facebook!Slashdot!StumbleUpon!Newsvine!AddThis Social Bookmark Button

Blog Comments
Man's Next Migration

Download Man's Next Migration by Dr. Spencer for only $9.99 through Paypal.

Goldilocks Mission: Man's Next Migration book by Dr. Spencer William Brown

Join Dr. Spencer as he takes us to a journey into the heart of the Goldilocks Mission and explores both present and emerging technologies that will empower man's migration to the stars.

Contribute

You can also help us out by contributing what you can.

Amount: 

Subscribe to RSS feed
Add to MyYahoo!
Subscribe in NewsGator Online
Add to Newsburst
Add to Google
Add to My AOL
Add to Pluck
Subscribe in FeedLounge
Add to Windows Live
Add to NetVibes
Subscribe in Rojo
Subscribe in Bloglines
Add to MyMSN
Add to Plusmo for your cellphone
Add to PageFlakes
Add to Technorati
Add to BlinkBits
JoomlaWatch Stats 1.2.10_03 by Matej Koval