By humans. By other life-forms is yet to be proven one way or another. There is already discussion of treaties to prevent contamination of any Mars biosphere by human missions there.
Also: what about the future? There's no point in sending a nuclear reactor to Mars if a future colonisation mission can't go ahead because the reactor has melted down...
Solar irradiance is approximately 50% less than on Earth. PV with high efficiency modules (the same ones they use on satellites) is also viable. I wonder if anyone has run the numbers on the cost of shipping a reactor Vs. the cost of shipping a football field of PV modules there.
Installing/laying out a football field of modules sounds rather tricky, as does keeping them clean (mars is dusty and windy).
I assume the nuclear reactor would be a pretty much "sealed unit" which just needs to get rid of a lot of heat. There is no reliable water/evaporative cooling on mars, nor is the atmosphere thick enough for fans etc. to be effective. Instead it will need huge thermally emissive panels. For them to be effective, they need to be very hot.
Dumping heat into the ground is another option. But, generally keeping things warm is going to be a larger issue than keeping things cool unless they are producing crazy amounts of power. Further, the atmosphere might only be 1% of earth's but when the temperate averages -60C you can still use it to passively dump heat without needing vast radiators.
It's solar plus batteries which have been used for rovers for a long time, but simply weigh more and have a relatively short lifespan. Especially when you consider how useful 'waste' heat is on a planet that gets that cold.
As to contamination, it's a planet we did not abandon earth when Chernobyl melted down. Worst case nobody goes within 100 miles of it for a few decades. But frankly people are unlikely to go to 99% of Mars anytime soon and can't walk outside without significant protection anyway.
By humans. By other life-forms is yet to be proven one way or another. There is already discussion of treaties to prevent contamination of any Mars biosphere by human missions there.
Also: what about the future? There's no point in sending a nuclear reactor to Mars if a future colonisation mission can't go ahead because the reactor has melted down...
Solar irradiance is approximately 50% less than on Earth. PV with high efficiency modules (the same ones they use on satellites) is also viable. I wonder if anyone has run the numbers on the cost of shipping a reactor Vs. the cost of shipping a football field of PV modules there.