Jimo also would bristle with fins to dissipate the intense heat from its reactor.Yeah, I’ll bet it would. You could also set up a Jovian espresso stand and steam a lot of lattés with the waste heat from a several-thousand-watt reactor. First Starbucks in space, anyone?
There’s something viscerally appealing about this behemoth. The objects humanity has flung into the outer system have been tiny. Though still far smaller than some of the gargantuan near-Earth projects NASA’s taken on in the past (such as Apollo or the ISS), Jimo evokes powerful images of pulp-era science fiction, in which humanity races among the stars in nuclear-powered rockets.
And imagine the equipment you could power with a reactor like that. Not only would it be likely to find life (if any is to be found) in the oceans of Ganymede, Callisto, and Europa, it would be able to broadcast high-definition television advertisements to billions of thermophilic bacteria. Just think: an entirely unexploited market that knows nothing about Nike or Toyota or Tommy Hilfiger. You’d just have to manufacture goods on a much smaller scale, and then convince UPS to greatly extend its delivery range.
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I’m struck by how much the basic layout of it looks like the Discovery from 2001.
Now that you mention it, yes, it does look like Discovery. I’ve seen a number of proposed spacecraft designs that feature modules at either end of a long, skinny superstructure. It makes sense to separate the instrumentation and crew from the engine, particularly if the engine produces harmful byproducts like radiation or intense waste heat, both of which are potential problems with Jimo’s propulsion system.