We all know about Star Wars and Star Trek and any other star-related IP that occurs in outer space and may or not be floating around - but that stuff isn’t even real. Or so I’ve been told. You know what is real, though? Human space travel to the moon, robots going to mars, and monkeys going to space. What’s next? Maybe a nuclear reactor in space.
Joining Mary and Jordan on this episode is Dr. David Poston, the reactor designer behind NASA’s Kilopower project and one of the leading minds in the push to bring compact, resilient nuclear systems to space. From Krusty and DUFF (yes, those are Simpsons references) to his disruptive new company, SpaceNukes, David walks us through how we power life far from Earth and why nuclear is the right fuel source for the job.
Humans are very ingenious, right? We find ways to make things work. But if we want to do anything substantial, you know, it's 99 percent essential. We won't be able to do any significant exploration or extended stays or build a colony on Mars or the Moon without nuclear power. We've got the physics down, it's the engineering we have to get done.
If you’re wondering whether or not Dr. Poston talked about the movie/book The Martian, then wonder no more. While in that story the main character was able to survive using solar power on Mars, he’d likely need A LOT more of it in real life to achieve what he needed. Enter: Nuclear.
If you saw The Martian, you know, the dust storm was a big, big problem, right? And I hate to say it, that movie was awesome, but it way underestimated how many solar panels he needed. ... You would need football fields of solar panels just to get the amount of power that he had in that rover. And so, nuclear is something we can launch and land and be compacted and we don't have to worry about the eclipse of the Sun at night.
A big part of Dr. Poston’s work is educating the general public on the safety and benefits of space-based nuclear energy—something he didn’t shy away from talking about on this episode. Some of that means rewiring what people think they know about nuclear based on things like The Simpsons and Chernobyl.
We talked about how The Simpsons would misportray, but hopefully, I think it's a parody, but Chernobyl, the HBO series really, really exaggerated the effects of radiation by incredible amounts. And the problem is it was so well done and so enjoyable to watch that people really ate that stuff up. It was very egregious, but it makes it exciting, right? It sells, it's the fear of radiation sells, and they play the scary music
Furthering our investment and work in nuclear is going to be able to improve society on earth and maybe even Mars! Listen to the full episode to learn more about how nuclear can improve space exploration and more.
The next episode airs on Thursday, June 19—make sure you tune in, Fissionaries!
