[ RadSafe ] UHTREX

[Franz Schönhofer]

Dear collegues,

I try to send this information to you at your personal addresses, since
RADSAFE has not only changed its name "International...." (how many non-US
citizens are still on RADSAFE???), but also the feature "reply to all" does
not reach the original sender. Furthermore my posts are so carefully
censored - sorry, "monitored", that even announcements for scientific
conferences are not forwarded to the list since weeks, not to talk about
other completely harmless scientific comments and answers to inquiries from
RADSAFErs. 

My answer to the topics raised:

Michael, look at Google, using simply "UHTREX" as the search criterium. I am
not at all an expert in this question, but in Wikipedia obviously an expert
covered the topic. I personally believe that it is very plausible. Otherwise
there is obviously not much to be found on Google. 

John, as mentioned above I am not an expert and I did not search for the
project Rover on Google. I know very well from the times when I was young,
that nuclear energy was considered then as a universally applicable remedy
for all technological questions. It did not take a very long time until
disillusion occurred - long before anti-nuclear groups started their
campaigns. I personally am not afraid of radioactivity but I do not like the
thought that nuclear reactors with highly enriched uranium are flying above
me..... You mentioned, that Phoebus ran at 4 000 MW(t) - there must be an
error of several orders of magnitude. Furthermore I am skeptic about the
supply of liquid hydrogen in deep space. 

Please confirm receipt of my message!

Best regards,

Franz

Franz Schoenhofer, PhD
MinRat i.R.
Habicherg. 31/7
A-1160 Wien/Vienna
AUSTRIA


-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu
[mailto:radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu] Im Auftrag von McNaughton,
Michael
Gesendet: Mittwoch, 02. Februar 2011 16:21
An: The International Radiation Protection (Health Physics) Mailing List
Betreff: [ RadSafe ] UHTREX

On a related subject, Does anyone in RadSafe land know about UHTREX? I would
be interested in learning more if there are any experts on this list.

-----Original Message-----
From: radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu
[mailto:radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu] On Behalf Of John Ahlquist
Sent: Tuesday, February 01, 2011 6:21 PM
To: radsafe at health.phys.iit.edu
Subject: [ RadSafe ] Space Propulsion; Enriched Uranium

In the 1950s and 60s the US had Project Rover to develop nuclear rocket
engines 
for deep space propulsion.  The largest reactor, Phoebus 2A [core about 4 ft

diameter and 4 ft high], ran at 4000 MW[t].  It was fueled by HEU beads in a

graphite matrix and cooled by liquid hydrogen.  The Project was phased out
in 
the late 60s due to lack of a defined mission.
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