Posted on 12/02/2014 7:57:35 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Rosetta's lander lasted just 60 hours on a comet after it bounced into the dark shadows of a cliff, where its solar panels couldn't power the vehicle. Why didn't it carry a more reliable power source, say a nuclear battery like one that's unfailingly fueled Voyager for decades? It's a simple question with a fascinating answer, one that begins with the Cold War and ends with the future space exploration.
When it comes to space travel, plutonium-238 is the perfect fuel: long-lasting and, as I'll explain later, relatively safe. Without it, we have no hope of going much further than Mars, after which it simply becomes too dark to rely on solar panels, the most common alternative power source in space. But the world is rapidly running out of plutonium-238. Because we've stopped making nuclear weapons.
Cold War origins
Plutonium-238, you see, is a byproduct of producing plutonium-239, better known as the main ingredient in nuclear weapons. During the Cold War that birthed the space race, this was a rather convenient fact. The Savannah River Site in South Carolina that made plutonium-239 for bombs also turned out plutonium-238 for satellites and space probes. After Savannah River shut down in the 1980s (only to linger as an environmental disaster), NASA began buying plutonium-238 from Russia.
NASA has sent since pellets of plutonium-238 on the two Voyager spacecraft, the Curiosity rover on Mars, and several other space probes exploring the dark outer reaches of our solar system.
Plutonium-238 also happens to be the perfect fuel for spacecraft. Although highly radioactive, the kind of radiation it emits does not easily penetrate through other material, making it safe. Wrapped in iridium metal, pellets of plutonium-238 glow red hot, giving off plenty of heat....
(Excerpt) Read more at gizmodo.com ...
More unintended consequences.
Maybe we can buy some from Iran
For later
What about dilithium crystals?
yeah, let them have Hanford cleanups in their hoods.
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Make lots of nuclear weapons, use to nuke all Muslims, refine/process as needed to create desired isotopes.
Solves two problems as the same time.
You are welcome.
;-)
yeah, let them have Hanford cleanups in their hoods.
Not quite the response I was expecting.
This was an attempt at gallows humor. The idea was that the US could buy U-238 from Iran, the country currently attempting to extract weapons-grade U-239 for missiles aimed at us ( and Israel).
Really not very funny
maybe not funny, but in a way truthful. every country that possesses these weapons have devastated a certain amount of their acreage.
Or if we behave, from Israel.
Back when the Oslo Accords were negotiated they were believed to be producing twenty-five to thirty-five additional warheads per year.
Probably the best source would be China now that it is modernizing its military and nuclear forces. Unfortunately, the PLA may have other plans for all of their burgeoning stock of U238 - their planned Mars and Lunar colonies ...
I think the premise of this article is wrong.
Savannah River Site is still open and running.
The Wikipedia article doesn’t say anything about us not still making fuel for NASA that I saw.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savannah_River_Site
Though it could be there.
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