[spingsprong]

Please be true, please be true!

How big is a two megawatt nuclear power source anyway? A quick search showed nuclear power plants are in the hundreds to low thousands of megawatt range, and RTGs are in the tens to hundreds of watt range. I have no idea what something that lies between those two would be.

[runj__]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro_nuclear_reactor

Toshiba 4S gives 10 MW.

"a 50 MW version [will be] available in the future"

[tgb]

Wikipedia gives the generator of Loss Angeles class nuclear submarines to be 26 MW [1]. I don't know whether you can make them as successful in space without the access to ambient water.

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_class_submarine

[madaxe_again]

The principle problem to be overcome with this tech is going to be cooling - both for the power source and for the drive. It's going to require radiators the with a stonkingly huge area and Peltier shunts, unless we come up with a cunning means of dumping excess heat - potentially turning it into more energy to drive with, even, using the seebeck effect.

[Crito]

> "I have no idea what something that lies between those two would be."

One example is the small nuclear reactors that have been used in orbit already: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOPAZ_nuclear_reactor

[robryk]

RORSAT[1] were Soviet satellites that carried radar and were powered by small nuclear reactors. The reactors provided between 2 and 6 kW of power.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RORSAT