Nuclear lightbulb

Nuclear lightbulb

A nuclear lightbulb is a hypothetical type of spacecraft engine using a Fission reactor to achieve Nuclear propulsion. Specifically it would be a type of Gas core reactor rocket that separates the nuclear fuel from the coolant/propellant with a quartz wall. It would be operated at such high temperature (approx. 25,000°C) that the vast majority of the electromagnetic emissions would be in the hard ultraviolet range. Fused silica is almost completely transparent to this light, so it would be used to contain the uranium hexafluoride and allow the light to heat reaction mass in a rocket or to generate electricity using a heat engine or photovoltaics.

This type of reactor shows great promise in both of these roles. As a rocket engine it, like all nuclear rocket designs, can greatly exceed the power density of a chemical rocket. However, it also does not involve the release of any radioactive material from the rocket, unlike other nuclear designs which would cause nuclear fallout if used in a planetary atmosphere (e.g. Project Orion). As a method to generate electricity, nuclear lightbulbs are extremely efficient because higher-temperature heat contains more Gibbs free energy than the low-temperature heat produced in current fossil-fuel plants and water-cooled nuclear reactors.

See also

External links


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Нужно сделать НИР?

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Nuclear thermal rocket — Sketch of nuclear thermal rocket …   Wikipedia

  • Nuclear reactor technology — This article is a subarticle of Nuclear power .A nuclear reactor is a device in which nuclear chain reactions are initiated, controlled, and sustained at a steady rate, as opposed to a nuclear bomb, in which the chain reaction occurs in a… …   Wikipedia

  • Nuclear reactor — Core of CROCUS, a small nuclear reactor used for research at the EPFL in Switzerland This article is a subarticle of Nuclear power. A nuclear reactor is a device to initiate and control a sustained nuclear chain reaction. Most commonly they are… …   Wikipedia

  • Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty — Treaty on the Non Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Participation in the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty …   Wikipedia

  • Nuclear pulse propulsion — An artist s conception of the Project Orion basic spacecraft, powered by nuclear pulse propulsion. Nuclear pulse propulsion (or External Pulsed Plasma Propulsion, as it is termed in one recent NASA document[1]) is a proposed method of spacecraft… …   Wikipedia

  • Nuclear salt-water rocket — A nuclear salt water rocket (or NSWR) is a proposed type of nuclear thermal rocket designed by Robert Zubrin that would be fueled by water bearing dissolved salts of Plutonium or U235. These would be stored in tanks that would prevent a critical… …   Wikipedia

  • Nuclear electric rocket — In a nuclear electric rocket, nuclear thermal energy is changed into electrical energy that is used to power one of the electrical propulsion technologies. Technically the powerplant is nuclear, not the propulsion system, but the terminology is… …   Wikipedia

  • Nuclear photonic rocket — In a nuclear photonic rocket, a nuclear reactor would generate such high temperatures that the blackbody radiation from the reactor would provide significant thrust. The disadvantage is that it takes a lot of power to generate a small amount of… …   Wikipedia

  • Gas core reactor rocket — Gas core reactor rockets are a conceptual type of rocket that is propelled by the exhausted coolant of a gaseous fission reactor. The nuclear fission reactor core may be either a gas or plasma. They may be capable of creating specific impulses of …   Wikipedia

  • Rocket engine — RS 68 being tested at NASA s Stennis Space Center. The nearly transparent exhaust is due to this engine s exhaust being mostly superheated steam (water vapor from its propellants, hydrogen and oxygen) …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”