[High Praise! to The Astute Bloggers]
About the Mars rover’s power plant:
The nuclear generator delivers both heat and 110 watts of steady electric power from an array of iridium capsules holding a ceramic form of plutonium dioxide. The heat is piped through the Curiosity carried by liquid Freon. Thermoelectric devices on the generator convert the heat into electricity with no moving parts. Idaho National Laboratory, which designed and tested the energy system, says it can operate for years.
If someone can make it bigger and put it under the hood of an SUV, I will finally agree to drive an electric car.
Ya, but Freon. . . oh noes!!!!11!! It’ll ruin the Martian atmosphere!!!
Bacon for Joan for thinking what I was thinking!
Perhaps we could turn this into some interstellar superweapon.
It could be a weather changing machine that is, in essence, a sophisticated device which we call “Freon.” Using this “Freon,” we punch a hole in the protective layer around the plant, which we scientists call the “Ozone Layer.” Slowly but surely, ultraviolet rays would pour in, increasing the risk of skin cancer. That is unless the world pays us a hefty ransom. Muhahahaha!
Back in ’58, Ford actually designed a nuclear powered car. It might have been a success, but it suffered from two major design flaws. First, it had a tendency to cause ants and spiders in the garage to mutate and grow to the size of small houses. Second, it had the misfortune of not being built by Obama cronies.
I want my Ford Nucleon!
We and the Sovs actually developed and flew nuclear powered bombers in the ’50’s (think about a bomber that never needs refueling). The US and the Sovs adopted slightly different design philosophies. On our aircraft, we put shielding on the reactor, which made the bomber too heavy to carry a payload. The Sovs skipped the shielding, which allowed for a payload; however, the resulting radiation poisoning had the unfortunate side effect of killing all but three members of the flight crews.
This sucker’s electrical!
I just checked, and Curiosity does have a laser capable of cutting rock. So it is a nuclear powered robotic space laser!
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/mission/instruments/spectrometers/chemcam/
I think you gotta wait for the thermionic version. The most powerful RTG listed on Wikipedia was 3KW.