If we want to establish a long-term and stable place of residence on Mars, mankind must find sustainable energy to supply.A recent test conducted in Nevada, the United States, shows that this sustainable energy may be the nuclear energy.
NASA and the U.S. Department of Energy have just completed their debut on the testing ground for the micro-nuclear energy system and a more comprehensive test will be conducted in March this year.
The test site, which is located at the National Security Experiment Base in Nevada, has been going on for several months since November last year and scientists are mainly focusing on whether the reactor can provide astronauts, robots and spacecraft in deep space and on the surface of the planet (including the surface of the moon and the moon) Activities provide enough energy.
You may recall that the human astronauts wandered the moon several times in the 1960s and 1970s, but we stopped here for a long time to come. To achieve the plot in the novel "Mars Rescue," humans need to be extremely powerful Energy system to support astronauts through long night, interstellar dust, sailed farther away from the sun.
This is a problem that NASA's Kilopower project needs to address, and their reactors are about the size of a roll of toilet paper, with uranium 235. According to NASA, the reactor has a power of 10 kilowatts, enough for two average households At least 10 years of electricity. By then, there will be 4 units to form a complete power output device.
The photo shows a simulation of a nuclear reactor on the Mars base
'President Trump's mission for NASA is to make mankind return to the moon, and the microreactor will move us further,' said Lee Manson, NASA's chief energy specialist, during the press conference.
NASA did not set an exact date for the Kilopower project to conduct a comprehensive test at the end of March as the unit still has room for improvement. "NASA forecasts the field environment and researchers will conduct full tests at maximum power under the predicted conditions "Manson said in an email." If we were to put the system in the aircraft, it would require more hardware tuning and testing. "