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National Security Cuts Into NASA's Plutonium

Posted by michael on from the get-out-the-oars dept.

cleveland61 writes "Space.com is reporting that an "undisclosed national security agency" is being assigned 7 Kg of NASA's 16 Kg supply of Pu 238. With a half life of 90 years Pu 238 is used mainly used in cases where batteries won't do here on earth. (Pacemakers, deep sea diving suits,etc.) It also provided the fuel for the Cassini Probe. My question is; Who is getting it and what are they using it for? Please tell me its Doc Brown looking for his 1.21 jigawatts!"

14 of 76 comments (clear)

  1. Just a guess by Wrexen · · Score: 3, Funny

    I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that the "undisclosed national security agency" is, in fact, the National Security Agency

    1. Re:Just a guess by David+Frankenstein · · Score: 3, Informative

      More likely the NRO. They are the ones in charge of the sats.

  2. two answers by Apreche · · Score: 3, Interesting

    the easy answer is they are making a few nukes.

    the answer that took a little thought is that indeed the NSA needs plutonium to make an unbeatable UPS for its large powerful computer systems. This way the will never have a power out, meaning they can spy on everyone 24/7 365.

    --
    The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
    1. Re:two answers by Muad'Dave · · Score: 3, Informative
      My chart shows that Pu238 is an alpha emitter, and is subject to spontaneous fission. A I recall, the thermoelectric generators use the heat given off by the Pu238 to generate power with what are essentially thermocouples.

      --
      Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
  3. Same thing by benh57 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The undisclosed agency is likely using it for the same thing NASA does - RTGs to power satellites. RTGs could help power secret spy sats just as well as science sats. They provide quite a lot of power and with them you don't need the solar arrays.

    1. Re:Same thing by Henry+V+.009 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I agree. And without the solar panels, these satellites will be mostly invisible until they start transmitting. So you have a back-up communications or spy array just in case China starts taking pot-shots at our birds with a laser.

    2. Re:Same thing by chris_mahan · · Score: 3, Funny

      Oh great, so when an "unspecified" agency launches an "unspecified" payload from an "unspecified" rocket in the middle of an "unspecified" location, we might have an "unspecified" problem aboard the rocket and have"unspecified" consequences that will spew "unspecified" elements in the athmosphere and cause "unspecified" damages to an "unspecified" number of people in "unspecified" countries.

      Dang, talk about precision warfare.

      --

      "Piter, too, is dead."

    3. Re:Same thing by CTalkobt · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Actually what makes the parent post intriguing is this.

      Currently the US has a set of Satillites that can form a communications relay and then beam messages to the ground.

      Suppose we have some black birds ( Satillites ) that operate solely on Nuclear Power with passive ( eg visual / thermal etc ) pickup of information / images. Now, let's broadcast the data to the communications relay and send it down encrypted.

      Since the birds doing the oberservation are "dark" - there only encryptions being laterally to earth's orbit their flight paths wouldn't be known.

      Hmm..... *looks up in the sky anxiously*

      --
      There's a gorilla from Manilla whose a fella that stinks of vanilla and has salmonella.
  4. Re:Perhaps by TamMan2000 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Pu 238 is a large molecule, fusion requires small molecues combining into larger ones. The only use for Plutonium in a fusion devise is as a "fuse" used to set of a big hot fusion reaction (H-Bomb).

    Along the bomb line...
    we already have a lot of nuclear material stockpiled in bomb form...

    --
    "I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
  5. Undersea Equipment by Detritus · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I've read that RTGs have been used for undersea equipment, like the combination line tap/recorder systems that the NSA has been reported to use on undersea communication cables.

    --
    Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
  6. It's going to be planted evidence. by Jon+Howard · · Score: 3, Funny

    They took it so they could plant it on suspects (or plant the radiation on their gear, at least) to prove that they got the "real" terrorists.

    There's going to be a "dirty bomb" conspiracy that gets busted soon, maybe a few.

  7. Re:Think small by RNLockwood · · Score: 3, Informative

    Pu 238 not likely to be used for a bomb since it won't fission, Pu 239 and U 235 are used for that.
    Might be usefull for tamping though but U 238 is lots cheaper.

    The half life of Pu 239 is 25,000 years and I have heard that it is warm to the touch. Pu 238 would be still warmer yet.

    The half life of U 235 is 730 million years.

    If fissile isotopes had short half lives we wouldn't have bombs or reactors. The fissile material would decay away too fast.

    --
    Nate
  8. Correction.... by jsimon12 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Please tell me its Doc Brown looking for his 1.21 jigawatts

    Just so you know the accepted pronunciation of giga was actually " JIGA ", hence the usage in Back to the Future, people just stopped using that pronunciation when gigabyte drives became more prevalent in consumer goods cause people saw the G and figured it was said like Go instead of like Giant . So the time machine in the movie was powered by 1,210 megawatts, or 1.21 gigawatts.

  9. Re:USSR used RTG's for decades.... by AJWM · · Score: 3

    The Soviets made some use of RTGs, but they also used nuclear reactors in some of their spy satellites, as a very heavy duty power source. Way beyond RTGs.

    Cosmos 954 was one such. The normal end-of-life manouever for those things was to eject the reactor core to a much higher orbit while the rest disintegrated on reentry. 954 didn't separate, and pieces of satellite and reactor core were strewn across northwest Canada. The cleanup operation (Operation Morning Light) took a while, and we learned some interesting things about Soviet space reactor design from the pieces.

    --
    -- Alastair