TL9 Spaceships

[vierasmarius]

Originally Posted by wellspring

BTW, how does a fission reactor work in space in the first place? Do you have to rotate it for gravity, or does it use something other than convection to operate?

I'm not sure what you mean by that. The basic (very basic) operation of a fission reactor is to place sufficient radioactive material in close proximity to get a sustained nuclear reaction. This generates energy (in the form of heat plus other stuff I don't really know much about) which, in current reactors, is used to boil water. None of this is dependent on being in a gravity well - a steam turbine is driven by pressure, not gravity.