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by SigmundA 3074 days ago
Sorry I wasn't using the strict term of fission[1].

This reactor says it uses U-235 which would be full fission similar to the US SNAP-10A[2] or Russian BES-5 RTG[3]

So yes the fission part is more complicated than a P-238 alpha decay RTG. Perhaps I mischaracterized the R&D complexity on the reactor portion, although it has been done before.

1. https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/35303/alpha-deca...

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SNAP-10A

3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BES-5

1 comments

I didn't know about those reactors. Interesting.

When writing the answer, I didn't even consider, that those reactors need to be fast reactors. In retrospect it is obvious, but makes controlling the power even harder.