My uncle helped with SNAP program out at Vandenburg. I remember when I was a young boy, he knew I was keenly interested in all things NASA back then, and he would tell me things that were probably not allowed, but I never once told another soul!!
In November 1979, SNAP-10A suffered an “anomalous event,” and the parent satellite begins shedding pieces. “Six more anomalous events occur in the next 6 years, releasing nearly 50 trackable pieces. Release of radioactives is possible but not confirmed,” reads a NASA report.
I love how the PR department sold an uncontrolled re-entry failure spreading radioactive fallout as a success. Probably the same department that sold ciggarettes.
Absolutely fascinating!!! I love the optimism and possibilities of these times - a *lot* of money going out of the AEC, although by 1964 things were just starting to look somewhat less rosy in terms of grant and contract funding. Nonetheless, trailblazer or not I think I would still have wanted a respirator while hand-turning those fuel rods on the lathe!!! The size-power equation is not very attractive though is it? All that for 500W - three decent light bulbs and your done!
+morelenmir I agree, you don't get the same kind of enthusiastic, almost dogmatically positive attitude today. It's wonderfully technical with a great soundtrack and reminds me of one from the UK called"Atomic Achievement." You can see why this was the age that gave birth to Gerry Anderson's Thunderbirds.
It never fails to amaze me how much was done in so little time between the last war and the early eighties. Now it takes what? Twenty years to produce a single fighter-jet. Yet, how many new designs came and went between Korea and the end of Vietnam? This is in spite of our immeasurable superior technology - especially computer modelling. Somehow these chaps did it all with sliderules and log tables on paper... I have tremendous respect for the baby-boomer engineers.
At 14:17 how exactly is heated radiated away, doesn't heat need a medium to be transferred into like air or water. I don't get how heat is transferred into a vacuum, there's nothing for heat to radiate into.
Heat is radiated into space as a form of light. You know it as infrared. Not a very efficient way to radiate heat. Cooling a spacecraft, therefore, is difficult. Reason a thermos with a vacuum liner can keep things cool or hot a long time, a very good insulator.
No the moon experiments were powered by RTGs, it's not a reactor, but it uses nuclear decay heat to generate power. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_generator
Were photo electric solar panels not even being conceived of as power supplies in 1964? Every little mini satellite is powered by them now I believe. The first one I remember seeing was about 1” square and demonstrated in science class 1960 something. Hand held Weston type camera light meters certainly were earlier.
Solar panels as we use them now are only about 30 years old... the previous types had very short lifespans, with extremely low conversion rates, were only remotely useful for near earth uses. Even modern panels fail beyond Jupiter orbit because they do not have sufficient conversion rates. We still use reactive elements, but have changed what type of reactor, because RTGs do not use an actual "reactor", rather they use the heat from radioactive elements to create a low current inside a transistor layer.
Sad with all our advancement, people want to move away from nuclear power. It feels like a failure to move out of the parents' house to start one's own life.
@@thekaiser4333 That wouldn't have generated nearly enough profit for the investors. Remember, we spent millions developing an ink pen that would work in space, while the Soviets just used pencils.
To ensure a significant amount of radioactive material does not make it back to the surface...... Have you ever heard of safety? Believe it or not regardless of what the alarmists say it's actually practiced. Weird I know.....
Thankfully solar panels became more efficient before too much time passed by. These basic rigs couldn't produce a great deal of power and on a dollar per launch kilo and dollar per watt basis, this was very expensive power. they still persisted with these little reactors for deep space probes though. Even during re-entry, rod and neutron activated metal debris would still have made it back to earth I would expect. They blew a lot of safety off to get these things launched.
You expect wrong. Step 10 would have burnt up in the atmosphere as well as many other radiothermal generators. Alarmists hear nuclear and want to believe that the engineers say to hell with safety yay radiation. But in reality where the rest of us live they don't.
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My uncle helped with SNAP program out at Vandenburg. I remember when I was a young boy, he knew I was keenly interested in all things NASA back then, and he would tell me things that were probably not allowed, but I never once told another soul!!
My uncle did also...
I could watch these videos all day
I wish we still had illustrators like the ones that worked on this.
The eutectic sodium-potassium (NaK) alloy was used as a coolant in the SNAP-10A
My grandfather wrote studies for UN in the 60’s on the distribution of debris and radiation from SNAP-9A
In November 1979, SNAP-10A suffered an “anomalous event,” and the parent satellite begins shedding pieces. “Six more anomalous events occur in the next 6 years, releasing nearly 50 trackable pieces. Release of radioactives is possible but not confirmed,” reads a NASA report.
Ruptured coolant / leaking NaK? The Sov's RORSATs used to dump coolant on ejecting the reactors to a higher orbit. Debris everywhere.
I love how the PR department sold an uncontrolled re-entry failure spreading radioactive fallout as a success. Probably the same department that sold ciggarettes.
Would love to hear the audio to this declassified DOE footage
Sounds like a good battery. Is there a reasonably priced Chinese high quality knock off available?
Absolutely fascinating!!! I love the optimism and possibilities of these times - a *lot* of money going out of the AEC, although by 1964 things were just starting to look somewhat less rosy in terms of grant and contract funding. Nonetheless, trailblazer or not I think I would still have wanted a respirator while hand-turning those fuel rods on the lathe!!!
The size-power equation is not very attractive though is it? All that for 500W - three decent light bulbs and your done!
+morelenmir I agree, you don't get the same kind of enthusiastic, almost dogmatically positive attitude today. It's wonderfully technical with a great soundtrack and reminds me of one from the UK called"Atomic Achievement."
You can see why this was the age that gave birth to Gerry Anderson's Thunderbirds.
+morelenmir 500 Watts... That blows my mind. All that effort in a nuclear reactor for 500 Watts.
It never fails to amaze me how much was done in so little time between the last war and the early eighties. Now it takes what? Twenty years to produce a single fighter-jet. Yet, how many new designs came and went between Korea and the end of Vietnam? This is in spite of our immeasurable superior technology - especially computer modelling. Somehow these chaps did it all with sliderules and log tables on paper... I have tremendous respect for the baby-boomer engineers.
+morelenmir right on the money!
500 watts was ALOT of available power for a space probe. Most of them back then had to be able to operate on a watt or less.
At 14:17 how exactly is heated radiated away, doesn't heat need a medium to be transferred into like air or water. I don't get how heat is transferred into a vacuum, there's nothing for heat to radiate into.
Heat is radiated into space as a form of light. You know it as infrared. Not a very efficient way to radiate heat. Cooling a spacecraft, therefore, is difficult. Reason a thermos with a vacuum liner can keep things cool or hot a long time, a very good insulator.
Was this a forerunner of the nuclear-powered ALSEP packages that were deployed on the moon?
No the moon experiments were powered by RTGs, it's not a reactor, but it uses nuclear decay heat to generate power.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_generator
Were photo electric solar panels not even being conceived of as power supplies in 1964? Every little mini satellite is powered by them now I believe. The first one I remember seeing was about 1” square and demonstrated in science class 1960 something. Hand held Weston type camera light meters certainly were earlier.
Solar panels as we use them now are only about 30 years old... the previous types had very short lifespans, with extremely low conversion rates, were only remotely useful for near earth uses. Even modern panels fail beyond Jupiter orbit because they do not have sufficient conversion rates.
We still use reactive elements, but have changed what type of reactor, because RTGs do not use an actual "reactor", rather they use the heat from radioactive elements to create a low current inside a transistor layer.
RIP left ear
"at beginning of the Space Age..." Isn't this entire documentary from the beginning of the Space Age?
Intriguing stuff here. Would love to have it in higher quality, & correct aspect ratio.
Is this how Radio-isotope Thermo-electric generators started?
Sad with all our advancement, people want to move away from nuclear power.
It feels like a failure to move out of the parents' house to start one's own life.
Sounds like Richard Carlson narrating this one- but its hard to hear on my phone.
... where's my atomic powered Jet-Pack!!
Good, now, where do I plug in the ISS.
The whole point of this was to power RORSATs while they were on the dark side of their orbit.
Wouldn't a large capacitor bank or rechargeable batteries have been a more sensible and efficient solution for this problem?
@@thekaiser4333 That wouldn't have generated nearly enough profit for the investors. Remember, we spent millions developing an ink pen that would work in space, while the Soviets just used pencils.
20:42 Max Speed exceeded by 17,495 mph.
Why is this video uploaded with the wrong square box format instead of the 4/3 letter box original format ? 🤷🏻♂️🤷🏻♂️🤷🏻♂️
It may have been filmed in techniscope
Yes, really weird
Because people bitch that there's black bars on either side of the screen ...
In other words because people are dumb
Srsly why was testing the atmospheric reentry and subsequent disintegration of the reactor into the atmosphere ever necessary??????
To ensure a significant amount of radioactive material does not make it back to the surface......
Have you ever heard of safety? Believe it or not regardless of what the alarmists say it's actually practiced. Weird I know.....
Thankfully solar panels became more efficient before too much time passed by. These basic rigs couldn't produce a great deal of power and on a dollar per launch kilo and dollar per watt basis, this was very expensive power. they still persisted with these little reactors for deep space probes though. Even during re-entry, rod and neutron activated metal debris would still have made it back to earth I would expect. They blew a lot of safety off to get these things launched.
You expect wrong. Step 10 would have burnt up in the atmosphere as well as many other radiothermal generators. Alarmists hear nuclear and want to believe that the engineers say to hell with safety yay radiation. But in reality where the rest of us live they don't.
I wonder if they knew solar was going to destroy their reactor dreams? And then I wonder what new power source will destroy our current solar dreams?
Maybe we start by grinding up kids in Florida who “Say Gay” for biodiesel.
Adds in the middle of UA-cam content 👎
simple fix get a damn ad blocker like is it really that hard to add one to your extensions lol