Aspects of Cs, Ba Knudsen ultrahigh-temperature TEC

Future military space missions require megawatts of basic power with burst provisions for hundreds of megawatts. Such space-nuclear-power requirements improve the competitive position of Knudsen ultrahigh-temperature thermionic energy conversion (KUTTEC). In this light examinations of theoretic and experimental TEC indicate the potential of KUTTEC to minimize interelectrode losses as well as radiator weights. But because most pertinent studies depart tentatively from traditional conditions, extrapolations as well as interpolations of suitable experimental works are essential to project KUTTEC potentialities. Attempts to provide some of these projections, supporting background and comparisons for Cs, Ba KUTTEC constitute this paper. Because of its performance and other advantages Cs, Ba KUTTEC appears quite promising for high-level space nuclear power