[ExI] Asteroidal mining was Nukes was less expensive energy

[Eugen Leitl]

On Wed, Sep 21, 2011 at 08:04:02PM -0700, Dennis May wrote:
> The cooling numbers I used were from space based
> cooling radiator engineering.
>  
> It takes huge radiators for cooling industrial processes
> in space.  Thus the interest in ice bodies where you

Radiative losses go with T^4, so use a higher temperature.
E.g. sodium-potassium cooled nuclear reactors in space need 
pretty small surface area to radiate nonnegligible power.

> have a ready place to dump heat with the side
> benefit of melting ice for radiation shielding and
> water mining.

If you're much beyond Mars (=half solar flux of Earth) 
you don't even need to shadow your radiators.

-- 
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
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