Gerard K. O'Neill - The High Frontier 2/5

Dr. Gerard K. O'Neill talks about his ideas for space colonization.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• space
• exploration
• colonization
• colony
• colonies
• science
• gerard
• o'neill
• cylinder
• bernal
• sphere
• stanford
• torus

[JulianGardna]

@marmaladekamikaze AFAIK He3 has accumulated on the lunar surface in billions of years thanks to the solar wind: I don't understand how it could have happened on the surface of meteoroids since their surface area is so small.

[JulianGardna]

@marmaladekamikaze AFAIK neutronic fusion reactors aren't clean but they aren't going to cause catastrophic incidents and produce dangerous and long lasting nuclear waste like fission reactors and btw people would enjoy the promise of an unlimited and enormouly abundant source of energy.

[JulianGardna]

@marmaladekamikaze The same would happen if for example one meteoroid falling in controlled descent would hit civilians for a mistake in calculating the crashing spot: IF it happened you can imagine the public hysteria. I think also that people would protest against it even before it starts.

[JulianGardna]

@marmaladekamikaze I agree with you but people don't care that statistically nuclear power plants are safe because the only two serious incidents (Chernobyl and Fukushima) had catastrophic results and people don't want to live close to a potential neutron bomb.

[marmaladekamikaze]

@JulianGardna

He3 is expensive right now, not because it's being used in Fusion reactors, but as a source of scientific curiousity/ for other uses. Fusion reactions that are not aneutronic will still garner some public opposition. Aneutronic He3 won't. Mining the moon is not a sound idea. there are very likely higher He3 concentrations in some meteoroids.

[marmaladekamikaze]

@JulianGardna

I see what you're saying but The comparison is not perfect, Many Fission reactor designs are not passive safe, we have yet to see an accident at a passive safe designed reactor complex. However The controlled re-entry of meteoroids would essentially be passive-safe. If anything goes awry the ~10 meter wide meteoroid would tumble and break up. Furthermore radiophobia is a big part to play in reactor opposition. People don't understand it so are naturally afraid.

[JulianGardna]

@marmaladekamikaze Regarding nuclear fusion I don't understand why the H3 reaction would be expensive since deuterium and tritium can be obtained from the oceans in unlimited amount and the periodic replacing of the reactors shielding can't be more expensive than building mining facilities on the moon, extracting and transporting He3 to Earth, even if doing it only with robots.

[JulianGardna]

@marmaladekamikaze Regarding meteroids I agree with you in theory but as it's happened with nuclear fission, one or two disasters caused by mistakes in the controlled fall and the public opinion would force the politicians to stop this kind of activity.

[marmaladekamikaze]

@JulianGardna

Exactly if the meteoroids burn up if anything goes wrong during their re-entry then they will burn up and be a threat to no one. However if the meteoroid is sent on a controlled decent and nothing goes wrong then the meteoroid will reach the ground in a desert for example, and be easy pickings for metal mining.

H3 is very expensive and fusion with H3 produces a lot of nasty neutrons. He3 is also expensive but doesn't come with much nasty neutrons. He3 is superior.

[JulianGardna]

@JulianGardna I meant He3 fusion will not have much success.