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A year in orbit: ISS deployment tests radiation detectors for future space missions
The predawn darkness on a cool Florida night was shattered by the ignition of nine Merlin engines on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The thrust of the engines shook the ground miles away. From a distance, the rocket appeared to slowly rise above the horizon. For the cargo onboard, the launch was anything but gentle, as the ignition of liquid oxygen generated more than 1.5 million pounds of force. After the rocket had been out of sight for several minutes, the booster dramatically returned to Earth with several sonic booms in a captivating show of engineering designed to make space travel less expensive and more sustainable.
Suresh M. Lee
Nuclear Technology | Volume 38 | Number 3 | May 1978 | Pages 384-386
Technical Paper | Fuel Cycle | doi.org/10.13182/NT78-A32036
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When very large values are obtained for the doubling time of a breeder reactor type, it becomes interesting to see how the finiteness of the lifetime of a reactor plant affects the growth of a breeder population. A possible effect is the time lag between expiration of one plant and start of operation of its replacement plant. An analytical expression for the necessary correction to the compound system doubling time of the reactor population can be derived. Numerical examples show that in realistic cases, correction to the compound system doubling time will be small.