Sean O’Keefe was talking fission at the 40th Space Congress, being held in Cape Canaveral.
I’m really glad to see him stick with SNP as a new direction for the agency. Hopefully it will really be a breakthrough, as promised, and not just another aborted “technology demonstrator” mule or “further study” paper queen.
While the nuclear sub bit is an apples-and-oranges comparison, it’s nice to see that he doesn’t seem to be getting pinned down by the luddites on the SNP issue — that is, he hasn’t yet allowed himself to be put on the defensive in this area through responding to hysterical and irrational criticism. By ignoring the likes of Bruce Gagnon, he is marginalizing those to whom no SNP is “safe” enough, and to whom space would be better left in its natural (ie: human-free) state.
Which is smart, because he would never be able to please them and still end up with the space nuclear power systems we need.
Space advocacy groups ought to develop position statements regarding the safety of space-based nuclar systems. We need to be prepared to challenge the irrational criticism that we know will follow, but we know from experience that we can’t necessarily rely upon NASA to “get the message out”. Any volunteers? Personally, I’m too busy and lack adequate technical knowledge to put together a good statement.