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NASA's Plutonium Supply Dwindling; ESA To Help
astroengine writes "NASA's stockpile of the plutonium isotope Pu-238 is at a critical level, causing concern that there won't be enough fuel for future deep space missions. Pellets of Pu-238 are used inside radioisotope thermoelectric generators (or RTGs) to generate electricity for space probes traveling beyond the orbit of Mars — solar energy is too weak for solar arrays at these distances. Blocked by a contract dispute with Russia to supply Pu-238 and the US Department of Energy that has not been granted funds to produce more of the isotope, NASA lacks enough of the radioisotope to fuel the future joint NASA-ESA mission to Europa. However, the head of the European Space Agency has announced that they have plans to commence a new nuclear energy program to alleviate the situation."
NASA is launching quite soon a spacecraft to Jupiter relying on solar panels. And the ESA spacecraft part of mentioned joint mission will also rely on solar panels. Seems they have improved quite a bit / I wouldn't be too surprised at seeing, eventually, some mission to Saturn relying on them.
Not saying that we don't need RTGs, we do of course (for further missions or more complex ones; using solar panels whenever possible saves RTGs for those...), but part of the premises of TFS is not terribly accurate.
One that hath name thou can not otter
Pardon my ignorance and possible first post - but couldn't NASA just recycle some retiring nuke warheads for plutonium?
Oh, yes, any moron in Slashdot is a rocket scientist.
No, they can't. Nukes have Pu-239 (the fissile isotope), and they need Pu-238 (the alpha emmiter).
They just need to construct additional pylons. Problem solved.
What is the airspeed of a fully laden swallow?
We only made it in the US at Hanford and Savannah River, both of those are shut down now.
It's very toxic, very hard to work with and very flammable and very much controlled, so thats why no private companies are in the market to produce it.
To produce Pu-238 you produce a ton of weapons grade plutonium, do we really need more of that crap churned out?
http://www.fas.org/nuke/intro/nuke/plutonium.htm
You wouldn't by any chance have fed any of this chili to a black hole?
Have gnu, will travel.
Cultural Victory? Nope.
Diplomatic Victory? Nope.
Space Race Victory? Nope.
That leaves Domination Victory and Conquest Victory.
Decisions, decisions.
You have issues dude. I identify myself as Muslim and it's a creed, but science-wise "Muslims" (Middle East) have lost it (i.e. stop being mad about it).
Yes, Algebra and Algorithm are Arabic words traced to the amazing Mohammed Ibn Musa Al-Khawarizmi (who was "Persian" btw, yes, the people we intend to bomb), and f#@king YES, India was there first.
But that doesn't take from him (or his civilization/creed) the right to call the names.
(For the purposes of this post, I will interchange creed and civilization, even though they're far-far-FAR from being the same thing).
It's a phenomenon Neil Degrasse Tyson describes as "Naming Rights" (I'm no scholar, so maybe it has another name). But basically, when a nation/region excels and innovates, they get the right to name their discoveries and they effectively "own" them.
Why is the rest of the world using .hk, .uk and .whatever domains? Why is the US the only country that enjoys .gov, .mil and .edu without a trailing .us?
Because, this s$#t was invented here, and "we"* earned it.
Jupiter, Venus, Mars, Pluto.. all Greek mythology names, why? They were "it"** back in the day.
So, what happened to the Muslim world? Well, Al-Ghazali decided to take them 300 years back into oblivion.
No scientist/mathematician/programmer/thinker/etc. would ever express prejudice. Empathy and sorrow for ignorance, maybe, but not hatred.
Now... where are we? We have racism (been to AZ lately?), prejudice (Muslim/Jew/*INSERT RELIGION* haters) and a whole lot more.
A lot of Americans do not believe in evolution or other scientifically proven facts. We kill our enemies for our "god-given" rights and we (the majority of us) want religion taught in school.
I wonder if GWB was our "Al-Ghazali", or maybe it will be Obama. Whomever it is, we must stop it and freaking move forward. Otherwise, we're fscked. We'll be the nation that our grandchildren and history talks about as "they invented XYZ, but muhahaha, look at them barbarians." And the elite nations at the time will nuke the ish out of them for being so backwards.
I want us to prevail, but with attitudes like yours and the extreme ignorance level the populace have, I'm afraid it's already too late.
I better start learning Chinese (Ni Hao) :(
And finally; to be on-topic; NASA needs to get some more of that "shiz-nit" :P
----
* I'm kind of one of you("us") now!
** A.K.A. The $h#t
If you can't mod them join them.
Pardon my ignorance and possible first post - but couldn't NASA just recycle some retiring nuke warheads for plutonium?
Oh, yes, any moron in Slashdot is a rocket scientist.
No, they can't. Nukes have Pu-239 (the fissile isotope), and they need Pu-238 (the alpha emmiter).
Apparently actual Slashdot rocket scientists are also assholes.
- Not GP, but a rocket scientist who thought it was a reasonable question.
Maybe they could use a Radioisotope Photoelectric Generator instead, at least for power, and save the Pu238 just for heating. From my understanding of it, limited since the only article (from 1981) I've ever read about it was the one I linked to, a RPG can use any gamma ray emitting isotope and will have full power for a period equal the half-life of the isotope used. And IIRC there are still several reactors in the US that can generate isotopes.
Never heard anything more about it, anyone else know more?
It's fucking plutonium. You can't just make it. Hippies freak shit when we try to build an oil refinery, much less refine nuclear material.
But for some reason they don't mind turning on the lights in their home with electricity provided by coal fired generators that put more radioactive particulates in the air than any nuclear plant could.
That in itself doesn't say very much, does it?
Have you ever seen a typical home that hasn't been touched since the late 40's-50's? It had a refrigerator, a radio everyone huddled around, a single light bulb and one outlet in each room (there being very few rooms to begin with), if you were fortunate--two outlets if you're very lucky. They didn't have central air, or big screens TVs and computers humming along all day, burning through thousands upon thousands of kWh.
I see that 10% number float around from time to time. Don't know where it comes from, or if it's remotely accurate at all--but if I had to guess: should we undertake *ALL* of that energy research and weapon building today, it would be dwarfed compared to the country's power bill for A/C alone.
Constitutional rights may be respected, repealed, or modified; but they must never be ignored.
Thanks! and I whole-heatedly agree with you!
I recently watched The Unthinkable (if you haven't watched it, it's a great movie), and as to not spoil it for anyone, all I can say is that I was sitting at the edge of my seat and rooting for Samuel Jackson throughout the movie.
Bin Laden is an a$$hole, and the 72 virgins (myth) will be well-hung top-men scavenging his and his goons' cavities while slow-roasting them to perfection (yes I hate them as much as you do, probably even more so).
The stories that have been hitting Slashdot about censorship in Pakistan and other Islamic countries gathered quite a few "look at them backwards Muslims", instead of generating empathy about the sad state of these countries.
I should know, I lived in a couple of them growing up. People are afraid for their lives and cannot speak up. People can't discuss politics in coffee shops, because that guy smoking hooka is new and he might be from internal affairs, and if he marks you, your family won't even know what happened to you (Egyptian NSA-equivalent calls it "sending someone behind the sun").
America used to be the great nation everyone there talked about. It was wonderland, where you can criticize leaders and "be alive the next day". Where your creed and background did not matter, only what you knew and what you can do.
But somehow when we started meddling with their affairs, we became the villain. There's an Arabic saying that goes something like "Me and my brother would fight my cousin if he does us wrong, but if a stranger comes in, my cousin and I will team up".
The solution is _not_ to go into these countries with military force to "spread freedom", the solution is to stand up against tyranny with words, show them an example of democracy over here and not to co-operate with their regimes to oppress people.
Final words: Any kind of zealotry (religious/nationalistic/software) is ignorant, and I hope that I see a world without hatred before my time is up here. I doubt it, but I'm still an optimist inside and one can dream.
If you can't mod them join them.
They've got a critical amount of Pu-238 and they want more?