Dave-Platt%LADC@CISL-SERVICE-MULTICS.ARPA (Dave Platt) (02/13/86)
From "Research and Development" magazine, 2/86, page 60... "The Department of Energy has revived a program to develop a compact, space-based nuclear reactor and has selected the Hanford National Laboratory, Richland, WA as the contractor. A program to design and build a space-based reactor was begun in the 1950s but was dropped in the 1970s. The new plans call for development of a 300-kW power reactor by 1991. DOE said that the reactor, which could be used for a variety of space applications including weapons and radar for the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) program, would be a liquid- metal cooled fast-reactor design... ... It has been estimated that, with a 6-MW nuclear power generating plant on a spacecraft, a five-person crew could travel to Mars in about 600 days, stay for 30 days, and return to Earth in about 270 days. Such a reactor would be some 20 times larger than the planned 300-kW system. Hanford will receive about $300 million from the Federal government for the 300-kW project, DOE stated."