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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!"

5 of 76 comments (clear)

  1. 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 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.
  2. 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
  3. 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.