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A comment on NASA to test prototype Kilopower nuclear reactor. Parent comment

Re:NASA to test prototype Kilopower nuclear reactor by andygates on Monday December 11, 2017 @05:59AM (#15896292)
They're very low power, make a lot of waste low-grade heat, and use an inefficient electricity generation approach.
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Re:NASA to test prototype Kilopower nuclear reactor by masklinn on Monday December 11, 2017 @06:10AM (#15896337)
> make a lot of waste low-grade heat

That's probably the biggest issue for deep space it's extremely difficult to shed heat in hard vacuum (without ejecting mass and its heat with it) as you can only radiate it away.

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Re:NASA to test prototype Kilopower nuclear reactor by acidburnNSA on Monday December 11, 2017 @09:57AM (#15897323)
And radiative heat transfer scaled with temperature to the fourth power so it would be easy to do if you had materials that could handle really high temperatures for long times.
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Re:NASA to test prototype Kilopower nuclear reactor by wbl on Monday December 11, 2017 @10:39AM (#15897665)
But then your Carnot efficiency goes way down.
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