Nuclear Power for Space

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Col. Charles Galbreath, USSF (Ret.):

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, can y’all hear me okay? All right, great, thank you very much. I saw the thumbs up in the back row. So, welcome to our panel on nuclear power for space, I’m Charles Galbreath, the director and senior resident fellow for space studies at the Mitchell Institute Space Power Advantage Center of Excellence. Nuclear power for space goes back to the beginnings of the space age itself, from frequently employed radioisotope generators and radioisotope heater units, to fission power sources, and the potential transformation enabled by nuclear propulsion. Unfortunately, inconsistent demands and priorities have left some of the boldest advancements on the drawing board. The increasing importance of space capabilities and their effects and the increasing threats that are posed by adversaries places renewed emphasis on advancing key technologies to maintain a space power advantage. Nuclear technologies can provide new forms of propulsion, power generation, enabling new missions in orbit, and the burgeoning cislunar domain.

To discuss the future of nuclear power in space, I’m thrilled to welcome a distinguished panel of experts. First, I’d like to welcome Dr. Bob Behnken, the vice president of mission strategy and advanced capabilities at Lockheed Martin. Joining him is Dr. Bussey, the deputy chief science officer for the United States Space Force, and next we have Scott Forney, president of General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems, and finally, Will Madsen, the founding head of mission engineering at Antares. Thank you all for joining us today and thank you for joining us in the audience. Rather than opening comments, let’s just dive into some questions if we could. So, Dr. Bussey, to start us off, we don’t talk about nuclear power for space to do nuclear power for space, it’s an enabler of missions. So, can you give us a brief example of some of the missions or use cases that the Space Force might be considering when it comes to nuclear propulsion or nuclear power?

Dr. Gillian Bussey:

Yeah, thank you for that. So, obviously we don’t pursue nuclear power just because it’s really cool, we need to do mission utility analysis, it needs to buy its way in. So, right now our analysis indicates that it competes with solar at about 10 to 20 kilowatts for LEO and MEO orbits, and about 50 kilowatts for GEO orbits. So, that’s where the size, weight, and power and cost of nuclear starts to favor that solution over solar. As General Chilton talked about with the NASA administrator, power is a limiting factor on orbit, and power is what really enables a lot of our missions, and our missions are growing, the threat is growing, so we have a need for higher power. So, where nuclear really pays off is those cases, like I said, above about 20 kilowatts, where you need higher power, or you also need high power and high duty cycles.

So, during the Cold War, the Soviets had a program called RORSAT, which was a nuclear-powered SAR radar in space to do AMTI, and so that is one potential use case. Other use cases, you can have potentially unlimited sustained space maneuver, nuclear also works really well for operating in eclipse. You are no longer dependent on the sun, which can enable some interesting maneuvers and emissions. It’s useful in cislunar space, also useful on the ground, as NASA pointed out. And so, fundamentally it needs to buy its way in. And I think that we see some interesting new cases, I won’t talk in details, but you can kind of imagine what we could use more power for.

Col. Charles Galbreath, USSF (Ret.):

Thank you for that introduction. So, Dr. Behnken and Mr. Forney, Mr. Madsen, can you give us an insight into some of the initiatives that your companies are pursuing when it comes to nuclear propulsion or nuclear power? Dr. Behnken, could you kick us off?

Dr. Bob Behnken:

Sure, Director Galbreath, thank you for the question and the opportunity to be with the team today. At Lockheed Martin, I think folks are aware that we’ve been a proponent for nuclear power, both for exploration in the fashion that administrator Isaacman outlined this morning, as well as for the national security space application that Dr. Bussey outlined. We’re in the business of building kind of complex systems across all domains that require a significant amount of optimization. And when we look at nuclear power for space applications, we recognize that thermal management and power management are key areas that are going to need technological advancement in order to fully realize the capability of these systems, and that’s where we focused. We’ve also focused on building a test bed so that there is capability to evaluate the performance of these systems prior to involving nuclear in the equation. Obviously safety is a key factor and we’ve made investments in that area as well.

I think in addition to that, as you look at national security space applications in particular, it’s really critical that we consider the other technologies that need to be advanced simultaneously to fully utilize the power and the capability that nuclear brings. And so, when we talk about that point where 10 or 20 kilowatts in LEO or MEO or 50 kilowatts in GEO, the systems that exist today need to grow, and that requires some technology advancements that need to be pursued simultaneously to really get the benefits from a national security space perspective for these applications.

Col. Charles Galbreath, USSF (Ret.):

Mr. Forney?

Scott Forney:

Thanks Charles for inviting General Atomics to this, and the esteemed colleagues up here. General Atomics had been investing in nuclear technology associated with space since 1958. We may not have gotten it right, we had a program called Project Orion where we did pulses of nuclear explosions to lift off the earth and to accelerate in space, that program got canceled because of treaties. However, whether it was an RTG or a radioisotope thermal electric generator program, or any of the many nuclear thermal propulsion programs, we’ve been involved in the 60s, 70s, 80s, and even today we remain involved with nuclear thermal propulsion. The SNAP-10A is the only identified nuclear reactor that’s ever been launched in space by the United States, and that reactor had our uranium zirconium hydride fuel in it, which we still produce today. So, it’s a key enabling technology. As a matter of fact, we’re getting ready to make more investments associated with that novel fuel.

Over the years, we’ve been involved with so many programs that you got to have a database to keep track of the starts and stops. Right now, it appears that the start may be real between NASA and some of the Department of War activities. So, we think it’s incredibly important to not just develop a fission reactor, which, for GA, we’ve delivered 68 and we’re under contract for another four today, it’s very important to continue to have the right engineering capability to make sure we can shield properly if there’s humans involved or shield for equipment. So, that’s a key enabler. And as we look at the renaissance in the United States for terrestrial-based reactors, it’s getting harder and harder to find the right engineers. So, working with academia to make sure there’s a persistent training program or a persistent training program at industry I think is absolutely essential.

And I wouldn’t mind hearing more about that at some other time from Space Force on any of their thoughts. We talk about Space Academy for NASA, maybe that’s a place that more of this can occur. Our investments today though, we continue to develop new generations of fuel to make sure that we have the small SWaP, because if you’re going to put 50 kilowatts at GEO or in cislunar, you’ve got to have the right SWaP, and you’re not going to do that today with some of the available technology. We worked on TRISO fuel in the ’60s for some of our reactors that we built and delivered. Today, there’s a lot of popularity with TRISO fuel, but it takes up a lot of SWaP, and therefore we’re looking at alternatives and we’ve been testing alternatives at very, very high temperatures to demonstrate that we can achieve the ISP required to be able to move platforms much faster than chemical systems allows, chemical propulsion allows us today.

I think that there is other investments like on Sterling engines and some of the NAC pumps, the liquid metal pumps that require more investment between industry and IRAD and US government, I think more needs to be put in there, so we’re doing as much as we can. And lastly, radioisotope thermoelectric generators were very popular and remain popular. However, radioisotope thermophotovoltaics allows you to have a lot more efficiency and better SWaP size. So, we’ve been continuing to invest at multiple watt systems or similar sizes, but we’re also investing in 20 kilowatt systems to see if we can make that to be something that’s safe for launch and safe for humans if we’re on a manned vehicle. And we’ll continue to provide those large investments required to make sure that we can get to the next generation. The last thing I would say, if we have a use at NCASE that we’re probably not going to talk about today, that needs this power, you need to have sustainable power and you’re not going to do that directly with a reactor if you’re also doing propulsion like nuclear electric propulsion.

So, you need to be able to have a ride through capability between other energy systems, and we’ve been investing significantly in other alternate energy systems to be able to be adjunct and to help you have a ride through as you’re doing nuclear electric propulsion and also using demand. And I think industry has to continue doing those investments. Thanks Charles.

Col. Charles Galbreath, USSF (Ret.):

Thank you. Mr. Madsen.

Will Madsen:

Yeah, thanks for having me up here. It’s a great honor for Antares to be included on this panel. My company is building fission-powered spacecraft, full stop. We started the company about three years ago, our entire thesis has been around deploying microreactors that can be quickly adapted for use in space and on orbit. We are highly focused on achieving that goal. We are building now. We took the first commercial non-light water reactor in 40 years, critical at Idaho National Lab this summer, on June 4th. We in 2027 are going to have the first non-light water commercial reactor producing net electricity in 2027 at Idaho National Lab. We’ll be able to plug in demonstrators, any sorts of things at the power levels that you might want to see on something that would be directly applicable to high power applications on orbit. And around the timeframe of 2029, we want to have a space reactor ready to fly.

We are trying to partner with everyone across NASA, Space Force, really work through what are the missions and use cases, but we also aren’t waiting. We’ve raised significant amounts of private capital and we are building today. And the nuclear renaissance that’s happening in this nation has been truly amazing, there’s support bipartisan in the government and across industry to build these systems. So, I could not be more excited for the time that we are in now, and all the folks that are here seizing the moment because it’s going to take partners across industry, people building payloads, buses, you name it. The American people are waking up to the fact that we need high power in orbit, and really all of us in this room are stakeholders here and making sure this happens through NASA, for the Space Force, and broadly so that we don’t miss our chance.

Col. Charles Galbreath, USSF (Ret.):

Yeah. Thank you all very much. A great overview of an extensive body of work that’s going on within industry to get after this technology. Mr. Forney, you mentioned one of your first efforts was canceled because it was treaties and that makes me think about regulations. Are there some regulations that need to be changed or regulation hurdles that need to be overcome for industry to move forward more rapidly when it comes to nuclear power or nuclear propulsion? I’d like to get both of your perspectives on that.

Scott Forney:

Yeah, it’s a great question. I would say during President Trump’s number 45 presidency, he signed an executive order to try to simplify the ability to launch, and I think that’s helpful, but we still have many challenges because I’m not sure that we have a agreed upon process on how we’re going to launch fast. There’s a lot of activity in space right now relying on what did we do terrestrially? And terrestrially I think is also the NRC is trying to reduce requirements and enable to put more technology insertion capabilities into the user’s hands, and I worry about that because there’s been several stops and starts since about 2000 on nuclear reactors getting into space of some sort, and every one of them have been canceled, to my knowledge. So, I hope that we actually get to a point where we all know the rules for how do we get something launched, what’s the safety thing?

We were talking outside earlier about the Soviet Union has launched many systems and they’ve also crashed and the crashing didn’t seem to bother most people. Many of you in the audience may not even know where it crashed. But the safety requirements in a populated area, we’ve got to make sure that we have the right technology and I’m not sure that it’s crystal clear on what those requirements are should something occur during launch that you fall back down to earth. Many of us have worked on what are the ways to poison the system to make sure that you can’t have a reaction when you dump into an ocean or something, that’s a bigger problem, and I think the rules just to me are not straightforward, and it would be nice if we had a good map and we could all follow the same thing. Because we’re going to see all kinds of different variants, whether it’s nuclear batteries, heaters or propulsion systems, or electric power systems in the next decade and we need to get that straight.

The last thing I would say is on the fuel. Are you going to use highly enriched? Are you going to use under 20% enrichment? What are the rules? And then what is the government doing to make that access to the enriched uranium easier, and what are the rules so that we know what we can do to get into space? I think those are key issues.

Col. Charles Galbreath, USSF (Ret.):

Anybody else have any thoughts on regulations?

Dr. Bob Behnken:

I would just maybe add that the regulatory process does serve a really important purpose, which is to make sure that we do this safely. It’s going to be critical that the operations are safe going forward to achieve the vision that we all have of, I think the administrator put it in terms of a star fleet of a nuclear-powered spacecraft. So, that regulatory process serves an important purpose. What’s key though as we go forward is a sense of urgency on the government side, and a leader pushing to make that sense of urgency manifest itself as a mission that’s demonstrated capability that’s delivered on orbit. The White House and the Office of Science and Technology Policy has recognized this as an issue, and in their national initiative for American space nuclear power, it’s highlighted with a path to go forward there.

Now, the devil’s in the details and the proof is in the pudding, I guess, in terms of having enough longevity to achieve that sense of urgency from a regulatory perspective, but doing that safely is really critical for us to be able to bring these technologies forward and utilize them at the scale that we all envision.

Will Madsen:

Yeah. And finally, just a foot stomp on some of that. I mean, certainly we need a sense of urgency from the government, but we found it most effective when industry is bringing actual hardware projects that can be tested to the government for them to regulate, for them to look at. There is an immense amount of pressure on NASA and DOE from the administration to start flying reactors again, to get this going for our nation while the time is right. So, I would look to industry as well and say we should be putting our money where our mouth is. If we are convicted on this, we should be starting to make prototypes and we should get into high frequency engagement with the regulators because it all is going to come through a back and forth. A lot of these processes exist through the FAA and INSERV to fly nuclear reactors, they just haven’t been exercised. So, we need to learn by doing and start exercising those regulations frequently and work through all the safety cases.

Dr. Gillian Bussey:

So, I just wanted to quickly add, so within the government, in the inter-agency meetings, a large part of our emphasis is on the regulations, and with programs like SR1 and the eventual Space Force demo decreed by the EO, the whole point of these… Well, a large part of these exercises is to create a Pathfinder, to stress the bureaucracy, to exercise it… There’s about six or seven agencies, all very different, involved in various different parts of this process, some more than once. And I don’t think this process has been stressed or exercised in a long time. So, we don’t really know where the breaking points are. We don’t really understand what can be relaxed, what’s there for a good reason. So, I guess I’m moving forward to the issue of cost, but I think in the early run, the cost will seem very high because we are stressing that bureaucracy and we’re going through regulations that maybe we don’t need to, and I think after that Pathfinder exercise, the costs will go down quite significantly.

Col. Charles Galbreath, USSF (Ret.):

Thank you very much. Just your point about a Pathfinder I think is really relevant too, because while we’re doing new things on orbit potentially, this isn’t the first time we’ve done nuclear capabilities at all, right? There’s been a nuclear Navy for decades, we have nuclear power plants. And I know Antares and General Atomics are both involved with some nuclear efforts terrestrially. So Mr. Madsen and Mr. Forney, can you give me a little example of how you plan to leverage lessons learned from some of those terrestrial activities to enable and maybe accelerate space activities?

Will Madsen:

Absolutely, I can start on that. So, just to go over a couple of the key activities that we’re engaged with, the DOE reactor pilot program went on this summer, that has concluded and has gone into a new program the DOE is piloting called the Launchpad, where they’re enabling us to rapidly license reactors through an expedited pathway and through really high frequency engagement with the DOE. We are licensing our first DOE operational reactors at Joint Base San Antonio through an Air Force program called Advanced Nuclear Power for Installations. We’ve also been selected for the Army’s Janus program, where we’re going to be deploying reactors to Fort Bragg and other locations. As well as recently announced through Space Works, we were selected for the Space Force’s First Strategic Breakthrough Award, which is going to take us through an actual reactor demonstration of a space reactor at Idaho.

So, all of this together is really allowing us to build the types of systems that we are then going to flight qualify and send up to space. Now, what is the same thing about a terrestrial nuclear system? Well, we happen to choose a lot of the same architectures and that’s helpful, we have a heat pipe cooling system, all sorts of things that allow us to quickly adapt the system. I’m not going to bore you with those details though, because the more important part I think to building space reactors is really showing that you have the infrastructure in place to quickly, rapidly build reactors, show your safety programs work, engage with regulators, all of that kind of muscle memory of why is it hard to do any nuclear thing given the nuanced safety conditions of any tests that you’re going to be running, the terrestrial side of things is immensely helpful for that.

So, the other programs where we are deploying microreactors directly feed into our ability to expand our manufacturing footprint, get our test capabilities online, spin up all the locations that we’re operating at Idaho National Lab for special handling of nuclear fuels, fueling reactors, and ultimately testing them. So, we’re going to get immense improvements there. And then likewise, I mean, we’re focused on microreactors that we want to put in austere situations and places where you wouldn’t have liquid fuel chains, so all of our work on the space programs to design better reactors for resilient operations away from where people can control them feed directly into our terrestrial programs and it really creates a flywheel for us. So, we couldn’t be more excited about all of the terrestrial demand for microreactors, and that’s really going to subsidize our ability to get space reactors on orbit at cost and at performance for the war fighter.

Scott Forney:

Yeah, I would summarize as supply chain, period. The supply chain challenges… I mean, the United States hasn’t delivered a nuclear reactor for terrestrial application other than the two AP 1000s, we’re kind of in a sorry shape, so we need the supply chain to make sure that we have enough health, not to just build terrestrial and be able to apply those lessons learned, but there are novel requirements in space that have no relationship whatsoever to terrestrial. The thermal management system I think is probably the largest delta in a reactor from earth versus space. You can do a lot… We’re a space company as well, we’ve been doing space for decades, but more importantly, you can learn a lot from that, but there really is no analogous system from earth to space other than the engineering part of it, some of the supply chain part of it, and I’m back to fuel.

Fuel is, in my view, is probably the best thing that the government can help us with is being able to provide the right blending for whatever the enrichment’s going to be as fast as we can so that we can deliver on these promises. We’re happy also to be under the Janus program, we’ll deliver a reactor to Fort Hood, Texas, and that’s very good that we can continue to use our engineering skills. When you say you delivered 68 reactors, that was yesterday, today we have to continue doing it. We have the ability to continue hiring from a technical standpoint. As vertically integrated as our company is, we make 85% of everything we design, we have to have access to certain supply chains that are key. I already mentioned that liquid metal systems are critical to make sure that we have access to the right technology, but I really think it’s all about fuel.

And there’s so many of us now who are going to have demand in the next five years for fuel that I think is probably the key issue for supply chain. I know that the US government’s working on it, but I would say that we need to work together to make sure that we all understand what enrichment requirements we have so that we can get that fuel to make our final configurations. The last thing I would say is that we make our uranium zirconium hydrate fuel with another company in Romans, France, with Framatome. Several of the programs that we’ve been supporting, we’ve been directed it must be domestically produced, so we’re busy worrying about providing that capability and what are the investment requirements, but again, we can’t blend the fuel, so that’s back to mostly the Department of Energy Labs and the US government to help us with that specific supply chain. Thanks.

Col. Charles Galbreath, USSF (Ret.):

Yeah, thank you. So, Dr. Bussey, you brought up cost earlier, so let’s go back on that for a little bit. Certainly there will be higher cost initially to break through some of the technology barriers and maybe to normalize some of the nuclear operations, but can you give us some insight of how you think the government needs to be looking at making this a financially executable mission set?

Dr. Gillian Bussey:

All right. So, one of the issues with nuclear reactors in space is there’s no air to radiate the heat away, and they produce a lot of heat. So, we need radiators. And part of the reason why that cost break point is 10 to 20 kilowatts is because at those lower power levels, you need more radiator weight, size compared to solar. And so, then size and weight is launch cost, it means less capability, it means less power. And so, it’s recognized within the community that we need to do tech maturation to reduce the size of these radiators as well as increase their efficiency. So, there’s some tech mat in terms of new materials. Another part of the challenge is the power conversion and generation systems also take up a lot of space and weight, and so when you look at these systems and you’re trying to do propulsion, about 40 to 60% of the radiators, the generation system, conversion system is that dry mass. So, now you have to carry that with you, which carries a huge penalty.

So, all of this leads to cost because you can’t get the power levels up to really make it worthwhile. So, tech maturation needed in both those areas. And then as you mentioned, the development costs are going to be quite large. To be frank, if the Space Force were to do this alone, it would subsume our entire S&T budget. And so, we obviously can’t afford to do that because we have lots of S&T needs and lots of other missions. And so, the executive order got it right, Jared Isaacman talked about partnering with the Space Force, we absolutely need to be working together and we are trying to work together and leverage as much as possible what NASA’s doing. The Antares effort is also supporting SR1, so we get some good leverage there from DOE investments, from NASA investments. And so, we’re basically trying not to create another nuclear reactor, we’re trying to leverage and do as much as what they’re doing as possible.

Col. Charles Galbreath, USSF (Ret.):

Yeah. Thank you. I’m glad you brought up the partnership with NASA and Administrator Isaacman’s comments. So, let’s shift a little bit and talk about nuclear propulsion. NASA has SR1, space reactor one, I believe it’s called Freedom… Okay, I got that right. Yay. But one of the things that NASA’s really considering nuclear for is to decrease the amount of time it takes to get to Mars, by as much as potentially 50%. So, Mr. Forney and Dr. Behnken, can you talk a little bit about nuclear propulsion and some of the efforts that you’ve seen or areas that you think are critical tech hurdles that need to be overcome?

Scott Forney:

Sure. I’ll take the question first. I think Gillian brought up some of this, it’s about advanced material. If you’re going to have, depending on what kind of propulsion you want, some of the material requirements that we need to be able to get to Mars or wherever we’re going much faster, which is factual, you need advanced materials. Some of those materials in the ’70s just didn’t exist, we didn’t have the ceramic capabilities that we have today. I think that overall, in addition to the radiators, in addition to the fuel, we also have to be worried about the environmental conditions, and how are we going to stress out if it’s nuclear thermal propulsion, you have very, very high temperatures to be able to accelerate the hydrogen, and in order to do that, those materials did not exist until now.

We’ve been all working on them for nuclear thermal propulsion, we ourselves have built a silicon carbide factory so we can make and control our own quality for that material, use the same scientist engineers for zirconium carbide. We’ve done a lot of testing with NASA to demonstrate that capability. But then you have fuel that, depending on what your ISP, depending on how fast you want to accelerate to get to location, the temperature of the fuel could be above melting point, which means you have to figure out what’s the environmental solution to capture that uranium, whatever version you’re using. These are really hard challenges, and I don’t think the government on their own can afford to go deal with all these S&T issues alone, I think industry has to continue invest to be able to find other uses so that we can get dual use capability for some of our investments. At least that’s, I think, what most of us sitting up here are trying to find more and more money anywhere we can find it to help us move that along.

Because first of all, we’re timed, when can we go to Mars? If you have nuclear power and you’re doing either nuclear thermal propulsion or you’re using thrusters of some sort, you can probably leave earth anytime you want to get to these locations because you’ve changed the game. And if we’re really going to get humans to the Mars sooner than later, we must figure out how to do that. And so, I think that the investment strategy is, I think, well understood what it needs to happen, I just don’t know if we know what the cost is. We’re all trying to go as fast as we can and advantaging every one of these opportunities that we’re working on.

Dr. Bob Behnken:

I would just add to that, I think that Dr. Bussey hit it at the beginning that these technologies need to earn their way on relative to the mission applications. And so, from a Lockheed perspective, we really have focused on understanding what those compelling mission applications would be. Some of them are in the exploration portfolio, some of them are on the national security space side, some of them are related to shortening transit times as you outlined for the Mars application, but there are other compelling cases as well. Taking more further is also a compelling case, thinking about taking a landed system to the outer planets rather than a system that accomplishes just a flyby. You can use your imagination as to what that might accomplish on a national security space side. In addition to that, being able to maneuver extensively takes us from a landscape, at least using the exploration analog that rather than visiting a location, we investigate a location.

We get to understand it for a longer period of time, collect a lot more insight relative to it. Being able to do that in our local area obviously has value to some audiences, using that same technology for NASA’s applications for exploration is also a compelling case. So, selecting those missions, building that story, understanding which technologies need to advance to leverage the nuclear capability for the specific mission application is really where we’ve focused. And identifying those technologies and making sure they come along at the same time that the reactor technologies come along, the ones that are best suited for space applications is really critical for us getting after the problems that are out there rather than simply pushing technology forward.

Col. Charles Galbreath, USSF (Ret.):

Thank you. I think we have a nuclear-powered clock because that is just ticking way too fast. So, I think we have time for maybe one question and some closing comments. We’ve touched a little bit on supply chain and some of the logistics infrastructure that’s required to enable the nuclear enterprise to grow. So, can I get a priority from your perspective, each of you, of how we need to improve our infrastructure to support a nuclear enterprise? Is it STEM education? Is it fuels? Is it technologies for materials, et cetera? Let’s just go down the line.

Dr. Bob Behnken:

Well, I think Scott already hit the fuels one as being a real priority. I think an additional one that I would add, from a Lockheed perspective, as we look at the entire portfolio of executing a mission is getting to the point that the infrastructure can support multiple simultaneous processing of nuclear-enabled spacecraft. The facilities that we have on the East and West Coast for our launch facilities just aren’t set up at this point to be able to accommodate the number of nuclear-enabled spacecraft that it’s going to take to achieve the vision that we have of delivering that capability both for exploration as well as national security space.

Dr. Gillian Bussey:

All right. So, I was going to say two things, I took infrastructure literally. So, in addition to what was said on my right, we need training. So, at our launch sites, they need to be qualified to handle nuclear material, but the folks operating these launch sites need to be able to be trained, the ground operators need training, they need to understand the limitations of these spacecraft. What is nuclear-enabled? What is it not? Which then gets to another interesting thing is I think as we do prototyping and experimentation, and we put these things up either through the space test program and we try them out, I’d like to think that the operators might find some more use cases for us.

There’s also at the launch sites where we do integration, these places are not nuclear qualified, the folks who do the launch system integration, they do not have nuclear expertise, so there’s going to be training there. And then in terms of other actual infrastructure, so our test sites, not just the ranges, but our ground test facilities, we don’t have ground test facilities that are nuclear qualified, or we also don’t have some of the ground test facilities to test out some of the key propulsion components associated with a nuclear electric propulsion. So, yeah, the test, the launch, the integration and the training.

Col. Charles Galbreath, USSF (Ret.):

I asked for one, you gave me four. Thank you, it is a complex problem. Mr. Forney.

Scott Forney:

It is a complex problem. Hey, did I say fuel?

Col. Charles Galbreath, USSF (Ret.):

I think you did, maybe once.

Dr. Bob Behnken:

Yeah. I heard you say fuel.

Scott Forney:

Yeah, I can’t do one either.

Col. Charles Galbreath, USSF (Ret.):

Okay. All right.

Scott Forney:

There’s a logistics footprint, where do we test? There’s some testing that is about to occur in some locations, but we all have different designs, different requirements, and that is a big deal because it’s going to cost a lot of money, and that money has to come from somewhere. I agree totally with everything that was said on my right, I’ll say ditto about five times. But there’s also some little… Everything about space nuclear is not easy. For example, you need to be able to machine large volumes of beryllium. Well, I don’t know how many of you know how hard it is to machine beryllium, and what the safety requirements are, but it’s not easy. GA does some beryllium for many reasons, but there’s only one other company that I know in the United States, and if you want to do something classified, you’re really in trouble. So, we have to worry about some of the esoteric things.

The radiator challenges that Dr. Bussey talked about is absolutely a requirement. What’s the final material? We can go on and on. The last thing I would say, logistically, let’s land something on the moon. Great. So, we have a reactor on the moon, we want it to last, call it five years, how do we operate? How do we deliver electricity? And where’s that electricity going? Are we going to do power beaming? Are we going to have the cables? I don’t think we’re going to have many cables going very far. And I think that logistic footprint, there’s a lot of companies working on it, but we need to get at it if we’re going to take advantage of some of these technologies.

Col. Charles Galbreath, USSF (Ret.):

Thank you. Sir?

Will Madsen:

Yeah. Foot stopping a lot of what’s already been said, but it’s really test facilities. It’s nuclear capable and licensed test facilities and the ability to work the regulators on it. I mean, the proof is in the pudding, the reason Antares was the first company in 40 years to take an advanced reactor critical wasn’t just because we’re the best team… I mean, we are, but aside from that, it’s because it’s damn hard, and there’s not a lot of facilities to do it, and you have to do a lot of hand-to-hand combat with the regulators to make it happen. So, test facilities and the licensing of such and enough government bodies and folks working in these licensing organizations with urgency to work with developers is crucially important because you can’t develop systems effectively if you can’t test them.

Col. Charles Galbreath, USSF (Ret.):

Okay. So, rapid fire, 30 seconds or less, what’s the one thing you want to leave our audience walking away understanding from this discussion? Mr. Madsen, why don’t we start with you and work way back?

Will Madsen:

Yeah. Nuclear power is a paradigm shifting capability for the war fighter, especially in the space domain. We’re all stakeholders here as the American people to ensure that we get this moment right and we do it. So, any decision that you guys are making to help push forward advanced technologies like this and actually make this happen, let’s all do this.

Scott Forney:

We need to have a sustained continuous program. If you go back to 1972, I think the government had 22,000 employees working on nuclear space, and then the oil embargo occurs and 22,000 scientists lost their jobs working on nuclear space. We started up the JIMO program 20 years ago, that program shut down. We started up the DRACO program, that program shut down. We need to sustain so that we can get industry and government staffed properly. We all talked about we need to do more, and I think we need to have long-term sustainment so that we can get at this, because the other guys, they’re not waiting on us.

Dr. Gillian Bussey:

So, I will say from a Space Force perspective, we need power on orbit. I believe that this will buy its way into the force, but that’s not going to happen unless… Well, I believe that’s going to happen because of all the great advances that we see happening in industry, the support from the White House, and what NASA’s doing. So, I’m excited to leverage all the great work out there.

Dr. Bob Behnken:

I would just add that we’re passionate about being able to go forward with this technology, you’ve heard it from all the folks on the panel today, and it’s evidenced by what the Mitchell Institute has pulled together for the discussion topics. I do want to say that it’s going to be done in partnership, whether that’s the supply chain, whether it’s industry partners direct, whether it’s a government champion that helps us navigate the regulatory process. Not that we won’t try to stress it, but we also need a champion that believes in it and is trying to move the ball forward across all of the departments involved with the ultimate gatekeeping that has challenged us to date. So, looking forward to the partnerships and y’all helping us move forward.

Col. Charles Galbreath, USSF (Ret.):

Thank you all. So, Dr. Behnken, Dr. Bussey, Mr. Forney, Mr. Madsen, thank you all for a wonderful and insightful discussion. Ladies and gentlemen, please join me and giving them a hand.