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Without Plutonium, Deep-Space Probe Missions May Sputter Out
cold fjord writes with this excerpt from Wired: "Most of what humanity knows about the outer planets came back to Earth on plutonium power. ... The characteristics of this metal's radioactive decay make it a super-fuel. ... there is no other viable option. Solar power is too weak, chemical batteries don't last, nuclear fission systems are too heavy. So, we depend on plutonium-238, a fuel largely acquired as by-product of making nuclear weapons. But there's a problem: We've almost run out. 'We've got enough to last to the end of this decade. That's it,' said Steve Johnson, a nuclear chemist at Idaho National Laboratory. And it's not just the U.S. reserves that are in jeopardy. The entire planet's stores are nearly depleted. ... what's left has already been spoken for and then some. ... Political ignorance and shortsighted squabbling, along with false promises from Russia, and penny-wise management of NASA's ever-thinning budget still stand in the way of a robust plutonium-238 production system." The plutonium shortage has been deepening for a long time, leading to some creative solutions. The Wired article alludes to the NASA project underway to create more, but leans toward gloom.
I don't know anything about them, but I have to ask why anything is too heavy in space? Is it too heavy when assembled on earth?
"Don't teach a man to fish, feed yourself. He's a grown man. Fishing's not that hard." - Ron Swanson
I'm sure that in 1985, plutonium is available in every corner drugstore, but in 2014, it's a little hard to come by.
Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats. -HLM
We are no longer creating bombs for a nuclear apocalypse.
We could have mined plutonium on Pluto, but they went and demoted it to a dwarf planet.
Comrade Kim maybe? Send Dennis Rodman with a briefcase?
Apparently Philo gives the secret of how to make plutonium from common household objects.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21505271
A shortage? right. That's enough to put a dent in a small moon.
One of the helpful byproducts of a Liquid Floride Thorium Reactor (LFTR) is Pu-238
Source: http://flibe-energy.com/?page_id=64
I knew downgrading Pluto from planet status would have unseen repercussions, first Plutonium, next what... no more plutocrats?
there are alternative isotopes, with much longer half lives even if battery weight is three or five times what a pu-238 one would be. not the heaviest thing in a spacecraft...anyway, the equipment to make the pu-238 exists, just a matter of getting serious about making the stuff
Only three more years to go! If you need a hand with finding the corner store, I'll be over at the Cafe 80s, where it's morning even if the aftern-n-noon!
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
Fire up Rocky Flats and Hanford again to start building the next generation of nukes! That way we can get enough Pu-238 to power our deep space ambitions! I read on "The Onion" that the North Koreans are already building their deep space probe Kim Il Wang 1 which will reach out and spread communism to our neighboring galaxies! We can't afford to have a deep space probe power gap! We must contain the Red Menace!
Frankly with all the carcinogens in our air, amoebas in our water and a third of us with Toxoplasmosis, what's a little radiation folks?
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
Japan is LOADED with a number of beta emitters that are perfect for making nuclear batteries. If we start filtering that water over by their nukes, we can create a number of batteries that can provide power for mars and the moon. And this is actually safer than Pu.
Now, with that said, we STILL need plutonium. In particular, deep space probes need not just power, but heat. Plutonium is far better for both of that.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
By 2005, according a Department of Energy report (.pdf), the U.S. government owned 87 pounds, of which roughly two-thirds was designated for national security projects, likely to power deep-sea espionage hardware.
What on earth do they need deep sea espionage for? Are they trying to spy on Cthulhu or something?
Problem solved!
Problem solved.. Actually, multiple problems get solved with this one.
Reprocess existing spent fuel rods that are soaking away in cooling pools world wide. We literally have tons of this material if we would just go process the spent fuel we already have on hand.
As a bonus, we will get a lot of useable fuel out of the process PLUS drastically reduce the size of the high level radioactive waste we have to store...
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
We can always just buy weapons-grade plutonium from North Korea and Iran.
* Build a moon base
* Setup solarpanels for lots of power generation
* Build infrastructure
* Extract lots of Helium 3
* Build a monorail assisted launch system
* Build space ship parts
* Build a Tokamak in parts, small enough to assemble in space
* Launch all the s#!+ into space and assemble all the parts
* Remember to launch a couple of tons of H3 too
* Go!
There are lots of uses for RTGs (including medical devices), but they have been hamstrung by anti-nuclear hysteria. If Pu 238 was more widely adopted commercially, these shortages would disappear.
The problem is that the Dept. of Energy, although hugely wasteful, cannot "afford" to make plutonium for NASA/JPL. Yet another way this and previous admin is trying to gut planetary science: http://www.planetary.org/blogs/casey-dreier/2013/20130913-the-doe-is-full-of-wasteful-spending-but-forbidden-to-help-nasa-make-plutonium-for-space-missions.html
This is fear-mongering. We are restarting production, and the new Advanced Sterling Radioisotope Generators we have developed produce three times the electricity for the same amount of Pu-238. ...that is, if NASA's budget isn't cut by the Republican house. Sequester is really hampering what NASA can do.
I thought NASA struck a deal with DOE back in March to do 2 kilos per year of Pu-238 back in March. Did it get de-funded or something? http://www.universetoday.com/100875/u-s-to-restart-plutonium-production-for-deep-space-exploration/
[RIAA] says its concern is artists. That's true, in just the sense that a cattle rancher is concerned about its cattle.
So what they're saying is, "No war - No fun."
Isn't that the way it's always worked?
You never really know how close to the edge you can go until you fall off.
But we're keeping tons of spent nuclear fuel in swimming pools and occasionally encasing it in giant blocks of cement and arguing about where to put it. Instead we could just put all that "waste" in a different kind of reactor and use it as fuel while also creating a chain of material that can have some plutonium pulled out for the occasional space probe or whatever. Problem is people are too scared of the "whatever" part to even allow this to happen - they'd rather pretend the spent fuel isn't an even bigger problem.
why a square mile of reflective mylar and a high efficiency panel won't power a satellite for a good long while?
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Phone cables don't cut and splice themselves, pal.
Many other isotypes and generator types.
Strontium-90 is a good substitute for shorter trips. Americium-241 is very close to being a reality for longer trips. There is also the Safe Affordable Fission Engine project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safe_Affordable_Fission_Engine
But there is another type of electro-mechanical rotating generator designed for Russian craft, TOPAZ-II, but, unfortunately, it's far too heavy.
Kriston
That big yellow ball in the sky is emitting more radiation than that little chunk of P238. You might not be aware of this but without the earths magnetic field and atmosphere in the way that little ball of light would kill you very very quickly.
As others have already noted that P238 isn't really dangerous unless you are going to eat it. Though plutonium is believed to be an entirely a man-made material uranium and all the other naturally occurring radioactive elements exist outside the earth as well as on it. The several ounces on a space probe used as a thermolytic generator is insignificant entirely.
Exactly!
Don't Pollute Space With Radiation!
I drank what? -- Socrates
OMG we're contaminating space with radiation! Think of the space ponies and the lunar ecology.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Neither of those substances are overly dangerous or radioactive. It's the stuff with shorter half lives that you have to worry about. It decays faster, and pound-for-pound will release a greater amount of radioactivity in a shorter time scale.
PU-238 has a half life of 87.7 years. It will be cold and inert thousands of years before entering another star system.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
The longer the half-life the less radioactive something is. So isotopes with half-lives in the hundreds of millions of years aren't very dangerous.
US Nuclear reactor currently orbiting Earth:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SNAP-10A
Launched April 3rd, 1965.
They had the nerve to demote Pluto, so now it's pluto-nium offsprings are leaving in protest!
Do we really need to send probes to the outer solar system for next half a century? Let's wait for better, lighter reactors and solar panels, and less power hungry electronics and more sensitive radios. In the mean time, let's mine some asteroids, send up better telescopes, practice human presence in space, send balloons to Venus and rovers to polar regions of Mercury...
What a fast breeder reactor to multiply fuel supply - fine - I won't mind as long as it's in lunar orbit you assemble and run it. Any place else and I hope there will be non-stop shit storm.
Lets see what happens with the Japanese reactor storage building full of fuel. I expect a small quake will bring the entire thing down, exposing all that fuel to air, burning and carrying super toxic participial all over the Pacific ocean and our west food growing area.
I'm in the process of tracking down a gieger-counter as is. Fear your tuna fish meal!
We already know from Doctor Who (Second Doctor, second story featuring the Ice Warriors) that humanity doesn't get beyond the moon until after transmat and weather control have been developed and we have a fully operational moonbase. Although the transmat part looks like it may be doable (despite incorrect calculations by cynics on how much data would be required), we're probably not going to see a moonbase and weather control is likely an impossibility.
Since these are prerequisites, I conclude that further travel than that will not happen. Since nobody will be going further, there will be no need to explore further. Whether, as Douglas Noel Adams' suggested, it turns out that leaving the oceans was a really bad idea is hard to say, but the lower 95% of the population seems determined to convince me that it was.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
It's just the usual /. dupe and delay system at work.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-10/123000-mph-plasma-engine-could-finally-take-astronauts-mars?page=2
These are super efficient and super fast and the fuel is readily available.
Brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.
See, this is why people who don't understand radiation shouldn't talk about it.
4.5 billion years of half-life means that the decay rate - the actual process that emits radiation - is so absurdly slow that the material itself is just not dangerous. The dangerous stuff is, almost by definition, the stuff with *short* half-lives. A gram of material with a millisecond half-life will release more radiation in one second than a kilo of U-238 will in a century, assuming they undergo the same types of decay. Secondary decay of the uranium will be a bigger problem, and still not much of one.
In fact, people have incorporated U-238 into everything from building bricks for houses to the glaze on pottery. Let me make that clear for you again: people have built houses out of material containing uranium ore. They have then lived out their natural lives - and sometimes the lives of several generations of a family - in those houses.
Calling it "spewing poison" is bullshit of the first degree. It's probably more dangerous to eat bananas (which contain radioactive potassium isotopes, in tiny amounts, but with much shorter half-lives) than it is to have U-238 all around you. Even pure, enriched U-235, while not something you'd want to hold in your hand, is not particularly dangerous to handle so long as you keep it away from neutron guns or reflectors, and below critical mass.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
As others have already noted that P238 isn't really dangerous unless you are going to eat it.
And whilst it is radioactive, the real danger of eating it would be that you would die of heavy metal poisoning... so the radioactivity is probably not worth anyone worrying about :)
http://blog.nexusuk.org
From the perspective of the sheer volume of space, radiation is all it is, mostly :)
Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
The author(s) did not even care to read the papers by Zefram Cochrane and are blithering on about plutonium. Anything is possible with dilithium. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilithium_(Star_Trek)
Space science is over. Screw it. First manned spaceflight died off now we can kill this off 'for the greater good'. Who cares anymore.
I would like to point out that space is big. really really big... a clever person might call it mind boggling big
Imagine I through a cork into the Atlantic ocean. Some time after that a person from the middle of Africa moves to Colorado. That person then drives to California and spend 1 minute at the beach.
He is far, far, far more likely to find the cork then a probe will find civilization before running out of fuel.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
We've had two US presidential administrations in the past three decades run by guys with double digit IQs. I wouldn't be throwing stones.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
Get in line, damnit. Helium gets saved first.
I saw a documentary the other day that showed that Nazis were in fact already doing this on the dark side of the moon.
Outsource the production of Pu-238 to private industry and they can get it made cheaply in pakistan or china or ukraine or somewhere.
What could possibly go wrong with that?
Just make the probe go slower
Table-ized A.I.
Nuclear fission reactor powered craft - assembled in space whose initial mission was out to the icy moons of Jupiter, where solar power would not be reliable.
Aswell as the JIMO (Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter) it was also considered for an unmanned inner-planet ion drive delivery system, where you would launch cargo into orbit around the Earth which would then be collected and delivered to the inner planets where the cargo would be released. This would then be able to deliver satellites and landers to Mars aswell as return goods back to earth.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Prometheus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jupiter_Icy_Moons_Orbiter
I'm pretty sure the DoD could scrape some together by looking under some rocks somewhere if it had to.
"You must try to forget all you have learned. You must begin to dream." -- Sherwood Anderson
Maybe the Russians and Chinese will corner the supply of Pu on earth and NASA and other space agencies will be forced to buy it from them to power their probes? Then we will have been probed by the Communists, yet again, and all due to our cheapscape policies. I think that Reds have figured out how to screw with Capitalism, just appear to the scarcity and miserly impulse in financial people. Beat them at their own game.
These long, hundreds millions or billions years half-lives are precisely why Uranium is not a big radiation hazard. Of course, an operating nuclear reactor or its waste products, that's another matter. The metal toxicity of Uranium is another problem, maybe that's what's causing all those deformed babies born or stillborn in Iraq.
Purchasing from Iran would be hard, as they don't have a nuclear weapons program.
NK does make plutonium based bombs, but just a handful. You won't get much from them. Pu 238 is the finest, most valuable nuclear waste around, rare and mostly obtained from the absurd nuclear weapons production of the US and Soviets. You'd better ask Israel for some of it. I dunno how much you would get, a guess would be maybe just enough for one deep space mission.