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Nuclear Reactors — in Space? Really?
NASA just announced the first 18 members of the Artemis team; the astronauts who may, if all goes well, go back to the moon (not all of them).
One name on the list stuck out to me. Well, several did, but in this case it was the person’s specialty that jumped out.
Her name is Kayla Barron, and she is making an unusual shift in profession…from the deeps to the void, as it were. Barron used to be a submariner. And she has a master’s degree in nuclear engineering.
This tells me that Barron’s MOS was a Nuclear Submarine Officer…a submarine Scotty tasked with keeping the nuclear reactor and related systems running.
So, why would NASA want a Nuclear Submarine Officer?
The reason may go beyond Artemis.
How Artemis Will Get to the Moon
Assuming plans don’t change, the Artemis astronauts will leave Earth on NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS), a very large multi-stage rocket.
They will then travel to the moon on Orion, which is very much a modernized version of the old Apollo capsule. It’s bigger, and relies on solar energy, so it can fly further.
They will make a pit stop at Gateway, which NASA is calling a spaceship, but is really a small space station, before…