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Batteries created for deep-space exploration - NASA to send an exploration device to Pluto.
KTVB ^ | 08/04/03 | Associated Press

Posted on 08/04/2003 7:36:59 AM PDT by bedolido

IDAHO FALLS -- A team of Idaho scientists is working to ensure space exploration takes place in the future.

The experts at Argonne National Laboratory-West are developing batteries called radioisotope thermoelectric generators. Their budget for the next 18 months is estimated at $21 million.

Department of Energy officials moved the nation's space battery program from Ohio to Idaho last year because of security concerns stemming from the September eleventh terrorist attacks.

The plutonium in the batteries produces heat, which can power spacecraft for decades. NASA plans to send an exploration device to Pluto in 2006.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Miscellaneous; News/Current Events; US: Idaho
KEYWORDS: 2006; batteries; deepspace; energy; exploration; nasa; pluto; space

1 posted on 08/04/2003 7:36:59 AM PDT by bedolido
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To: bedolido
RTGs are not batteries in the strict sense. They have been used--and will be used--for outer-planet exploration for years.

--Boris

2 posted on 08/04/2003 7:44:20 AM PDT by boris (The deadliest Weapon of Mass Destruction in History is a Leftist With a Word Processor)
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To: bedolido
Why waste $21 million when this guy already has it figured out?


3 posted on 08/04/2003 7:48:15 AM PDT by governsleastgovernsbest
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To: bedolido
Sorta like the ones they used in Voyager, wonder what the grennie-granolas will think about this....There is a web-page out there that lets you view the voltage signal that is still present for one of the Voyager units, although the voltages are probly still present in the others...

From: http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/instruments_rtg.html

Three RTG units, electrically parallel-connected, are the central power sources for the mission module. Each RTG is made up of an isotopic heat source, a thermoelectric converter, a gas pressure venting system, temperature transducers, connectors, a heat rejecting cylindrical container, and bracketry. The RTGs are mounted in tandem (end-to-end) on a deployable boom as part of the MM. The heat source radioisotopic fuel is Plutonium-238 in the form of the oxide Pu02. In the isotopic decay process, alpha particles are released which bombard the inner surface of the container. The energy released is converted to heat and is the source of heat to the thermoelectric converter.

4 posted on 08/04/2003 8:09:28 AM PDT by MD_Willington_1976
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To: bedolido
A team of Idaho scientists is working to ensure space exploration takes place in the future.

It would be much cheaper if it can take place in the past.

5 posted on 08/04/2003 8:17:21 AM PDT by Consort
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To: bedolido
Surprising the "green left tree huggers" don't want to find a way to recycle these for the space program to cut NASA's budget.


6 posted on 08/04/2003 8:36:53 AM PDT by Blue Highway
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