>>13643945I'd assume if an MSR is ever sent to Mars to power a colony it wouldn't be one of these huge setups that fill several large buildings, as we would build on Earth to provide tens to hundreds of GW to power large cities. You'd probably be looking at a single self-contained unit designed to mechanically self-regulate (In MSRs increased separation of fuel particles dissolved in the hot loop would prevent meltdowns, the hotter the reactor gets outside of normal range the faster the reaction is quenched), probably no larger than a school bus and no heavier than 50-100mT, generating no more than 2-300MWth/100-150MWe.
For a small colony these kinds of compact units would be more than sufficient to rapidly increase power generating capacity and thus allow for much more rapid ISRU, and other energy intensive tasks like smelting down local metal, and either baking or prooonting local basalt into new habitats, either of which will consume a lot of electrical power, operating boring drills to open up new tunnels, etc.
Not one of these fags who bash solar but I'm still certain that at some point a Martian colony will need a large influx of electrical power that can be offered by compact modern reactors.
Obviously that could also mean first generation fusion reactors if they get cracked before regulatory red tape would allow for the launch of a fission reactor into space.
