[ RadSafe ] Russian Reactor in Space

[JPreisig at aol.com]

Dear Radsafe:

       This is from:    jpreisig at aol.com


        Dear Radsafe Group:


        Hope you all are well.  The news story I saw on the internet was 
that
        the Russians are interested in putting a reactor in space to power
        a trip to Mars.  Maybe they've been reading Radsafe.

               Thorium fuel reactor information is given in the reactor 
book by
        Anthony Nero.  Dont know about proliferation information.

               Have been thinking about the Bevatron at Berkeley,  the 
Cosmotron
        at Brookhaven, the Zero Gradient Synchrotron at Argonne and the
        Calutron at Oak Ridge <Uranium Enrichment???>.  I think all these 
are
        weak focussing accelerators and all have beam tubes that look like 
home
        heating ducts.  For strong focussing, see books by Patterson and 
Thomas,
        Segre, Kaplan???, Livingston and Blewett or just search the 
internet.
        Strong focussing accelerators have smaller beam tubes --- see also
        the concept of Magnetic Alternating Gradients.

              Guess the Calutron at Oak Ridge would have been a much 
different 
        accelerator, had it had strong focussing.  Other enrichment 
techniques
        include diffusion, centrifuging, laser enrichment methods and 
similar
        things.

             So, was Heisenberg's reactor designed for Uranium use and 
breeding
        of Plutonium???  Seems breeding of Plutonium might get one to a
        working device well before just making a Uranium weapon.  Guess it
         somewhat depends on how many centrifuge steps one has to go through
        to get to a highly enriched material, Uranium or Plutonium????

              Don't worry, the house here in northeastern USA doesn't have
        chemically pure Uranium or Plutonium lying around.

              Wonder if they let Heisenberg drive the Submarine on the way 
to Japan???

               He must have been exceptionally bright.


               Hope you all have a good week at work.  Is the Large Hadron
        Collider at CERN operating yet?  RHIC at Brookhaven will apparently
        be running Gold on Gold ion collisions at pretty high energies in 
the near
        future.

        Regards,   Joseph R. <Joe> Preisig,   Ph.D.