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Commercial nuclear innovation "new space" age
In early 2006, a start-up company launched a small rocket from a tiny island in the Pacific. It exploded, showering the island with debris. A year later, a second launch attempt sent a rocket to space but failed to make orbit, burning up in the atmosphere. Another year brought a third attempt—and a third failure. The following month, in September 2008, the company used the last of its funds to launch a fourth rocket. It reached orbit, making history as the first privately funded liquid-fueled rocket to do so.
O. L. Gonçalez, L. P. Geraldo, R. Semmler
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 132 | Number 1 | May 1999 | Pages 135-147
Technical Note | doi.org/10.13182/NSE99-A2055
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Neutron photoproduction studies for 232Th and 238U were carried out from 5.61 to 10.83 MeV, by using up to 30 neutron capture gamma rays with high resolution in energy (4 to 20 eV), produced in an experimental arrangement at the IPEN-IEA-R1 2-MW research reactor. Samples of U3O8 depleted to 0.34% in 235U and natural ThO2 were irradiated inside a 4 sr long-counter neutron detector system, 520.5 cm away from the capture target. The gamma-ray flux was determined by means of a coaxial solid state Ge(Li) detector (EG&G ORTEC, 25 cm3, 5%) previously calibrated with capture gamma rays from a standard target of nitrogen (melamine). The compound neutron photoproduction cross section was measured for the gamma-ray spectrum produced by each capture target. Two methods to unfold the set of experimental data were proposed in order to obtain the differential cross sections at the main gamma line energies: the iterative and the least-squares methods. The calculated neutron photoproduction cross sections for 232Th and 238U were compared with experimental data reported by other authors who have employed different gamma-ray sources. A good overall agreement was observed among the experimental data, however, marked discrepancies were identified for some data points, indicating the possibility of narrow structures showing up at these excitation energies.