Comments by "Tony Wilson" (@tonywilson4713) on "The Army's Secret Plan to Conquer the Moon" video.

  1. AEROSPACE ENGINEER HERE: The reason you need a nuclear power plant on the moon has NOTHING to do with energy density. Kirk Sorenson (of Thorium fame) went through this as part of a study into powering a moon base. On the moon there's 3 options, Solar, Chemical and nuclear. Chemical (as in fuel cells or combustion) wont work because you'd need to constantly re-supply it. Solar can't work except at a couple of places near the South Pole. The problem is the moon is tidally locked and all the face that points towards the Earth, which you'd use so you have constant communications gets 14days of light followed by 14 days of darkness. If you tired you'd need double the number of solar panels and a huge battery which becomes a hassle flying it all there. Nuclear becomes the only viable option quite quickly and that means discussing WHAT TYPE - Uranium, Plutonium or Thorium fueled and then PWR, MSR, or straight thermal using something like a Sterling engine or Peltier effect. The problem with both PWR and MSR is getting all the stuff there and then getting it installed and then making it work and then maintaining it. Arguably one of the biggest problems is how far away do you install said reactor. Because the further away you place it from the base then the longer the power cable to connect it and copper IS NOT LIGHT. Also that plastic sheath you have on normal cables doesn't last well in space due to the radiation. THIS IS ALL PART of why we haven't been back to the moon in 50 years. We could have kept going but what would have been the purpose as we'd learned what we could with the technology we had. Then the Space Shuttle which was technically amazing was also tragically super expensive and required a lot more man hours to maintain so it ended up starving many programs like the ones needed to develop tech for a Moon base and so stuff didn't get developed. Then the ISS which is also technically amazing did the same thing AGAIN. The problem isn't knowing what's needed for a Moon base its just that most of it has been so starved of funding and people power is just not developed to the point where its deployable. If you read this far thanks and sorry for the long reply.
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