As of the last post on this proposition, the speculation was that a LFTR could fit inside a rocket and could be put into space. It would seem that this is confirmed with this pic below:
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| The size and shape looks favorable to something that could be launched into space |
Fifty megawatts of power available in space is nothing to be sneezed at. The LFTR could be spun up according to the scheme outlined in previous posts. This is so it could behave the same way as it does on the ground -- with "gravity".
What could be done with all that power?
The scheme so far is to power a station to an asteroid. But could something like this work near Earth?
Why not scoop some atmospheric gases from the edge of space?
I had an entire series of posts which explored the idea of gathering gases from the edge of space. This concept is not far-fetched at all. The main difficulty is in getting the necessary power to the spacecraft that will do the gathering. Lots of power is necessary. The LFTR could provide more than enough, which could be beamed down to the gathering module. Once enough has been gathered, it can be brought up and deposited in a higher orbit so that it can be used for beyond LEO missions.
Hydrogen would be desirable, but this isn't easily available from the edge of space. The hydrogen may come from the harvesting of water from asteroids and/or the moon. If these processes can be perfected, the need to bring them out of the deep gravity well will have been eliminated. That's the general idea.
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