NASA Running Low On Fuel For Space Exploration

smooth wombat writes "With the end of the Cold War came warmer relations with old adversaries, increased trade and a world less worried about nuclear war. It also brought with it an unexpected downside: lack of nuclear fuel to power deep space probes. Without this fuel, probes beyond Jupiter won't work because there isn't enough sunlight to use solar panels, which probes closer to the sun use. The fuel NASA relies on to power deep space probes is plutonium-238. This isotope is the result of nuclear weaponry, and since the United States has not made a nuclear device in 20 years, the supply has run out. For now, NASA is using Soviet supplies, but they too are almost exhausted. It is estimated it will cost at least $150 million to resume making the 11 pounds per year that is needed for space probes."

Comments

Re:buy it from North Korea or Iran

[captaindomon]

The parent post was tongue-in-cheek, but seriously, it's something to consider. North Korea needs money badly. The United States doesn't want them to have nuclear materials. The United States has money and needs nuclear materials. Why don't we just buy it from them? It solves a lot of different problems.

Re:Hm, an idea

[jd]

Given that nuclear reprocessing plants, such as Sellafield, supplied a lot of weapons material for the British nuclear program, I'd be astonished if these could not extract all of the plutonium needed from those fuel rods that have been recycled this way.

Alternatives?

[pwnies]

I know Sr-90 is often also used in similar devices (mainly Russian ones), any reason why we can't switch to that?

Research.

[Dyinobal]

Necessity is the mother of all invention. Lets take this opportunity to find a new method of powering probes for such long distance missions.

The US has a source

[sjbe]

There is a source available. Just decommission a few nuclear warheads each year. Since the US has enough nuclear weapons to basically end civilization, I suspect some could be spared without meaningfully degrading national security.

Re:buy it from North Korea or Iran

[Dogtanian]

(as a side benefit) the North Korean people will love us!

Joking aside, were it to happen, I believe that liberation of the North Korean people would open a massive can of worms.

Given that they've lived under an all-encompassing veil of propaganda and likely have a totally skewed worldview, can you imagine what would happen if the government fell and (e.g.) UN forces went in?

What do you tell these people? How will they react? How will you govern them?

Would it be necessary to exploit the existing propaganda machine to create the false impression that Kim Jong-Il is in power, gradually weaning them off their leaders over a period of years by pretending that these moves have been endorsed by their "beloved" leader and/or his "legitimate" successors until it converges with the real situation?

Of course, once they're truly weaned off the leader, the controlling forces would have to admit what had actually happened- a double mindfuck.

Re:Not all plutonium is the same

[RsG]

Sigh...

I really, really hope that was a joke. Because I'm sure somebody out there is going to assume it wasn't, and wonder why NASA doesn't just do that.

You can't "fission a few particles now and then". To establish the sort of chain reaction you're talking about in fissile fuel would require equipping the probe with a reactor. Ignoring the fact that people would scream bloody murder about launching such a device into orbit (it's been done before, but not recently, and not in this political climate), there are also technical limitations.

A RTG is not a reactor; it's something much lighter, with fewer moving parts. Doesn't generate as much power, but less power is needed if all you're running is a few sensor and communication systems. Even if we could make a reactor that lightweight, we couldn't make it go for decades at a time without maintenance.

So, to recap, we can't use Pu239 to power a RTG, and can't use a reactor to perform the same job. And we don't have very many isotopes that can fill the same role Pu238 does.

Plus, any fancy new solution would surely cost more than the $150 mil mentioned in TFA, making the question moot to begin with. Compared to the cost of developing, testing and building a next generation fission reactor that will run for decades sans maintainable, a few hundred million dollars is a drop in the bucket.