Xref: utzoo sci.space:4523 sci.space.shuttle:532
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From: bird@kksys.UUCP (0000-Mike Bird)
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.space.shuttle
Subject: Re: Payload of shuttle flight directly after last Challenger.
Summary: Apollo moon shots used nuclear reactors, didn't they?
Message-ID: <572@kksys.UUCP>
Date: 6 Feb 88 13:06:07 GMT
References: <347@flatline.UUCP> <1988Feb3.133415.12432@utzoo.uucp>
Reply-To: bird@kksys.UUCP (0000-Mike Bird)
Organization: K and K Systems, Minneapolis
Lines: 17
Posted: Sat Feb  6 07:06:07 1988

In article <1988Feb3.133415.12432@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>  [stuff deleted ] ... there is just no other satisfactory
>way of powering outer-planet missions -- there isn't enough sunlight out
>there for solar panels.
>The US has put one reactor into space, although not recently.  The Soviet
>Union routinely uses small reactors to power its military radarsats.
>Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology

I was under the impression that the experiment packages left up on the
moon by the manned Apollo shots used a small Pu-powered nuclear
reactor as their power source.  I seem to remember a small, black,
cylindrical device with radiating fins as the center imstrument
deployments.  Can anyone else confirm or deny this?
-- 
================================================================================
Mike Bird (These opinions are mine, dammit!)   Mail paths:  bird@kksys.UUCP -or-
Void where prohibited by law.                       ...rutgers!meccts!kksys!bird