NASA’s Plutonium Problem Could End Deep-Space Exploration, Wired
“The country’s scientific stockpile has dwindled to around 36 pounds. To put that in perspective, the battery that powers NASA’s Curiosity rover, which is currently studying the surface of Mars, contains roughly 10 pounds of plutonium, and what’s left has already been spoken for and then some. The implications for space exploration are dire: No more plutonium-238 means not exploring perhaps 99 percent of the solar system. In effect, much of NASA’s $1.5 billion-a-year (and shrinking) planetary science program is running out of time. The nuclear crisis is so bad that affected researchers know it simply as “The Problem.”
The DUFF small nuclear reactor Glenn and Department of energy worked on last year powered its Stirling convertors with uranium. Is this work still continuing?
http://www.nasa.gov/centers…
A good point. Uranium is much safer to launch than plutonium.
Uranium is too stable to use in Deep Spacecraft. Anyway about 3 months ago there was an article which stated NASA had started the process of producing plutonium for spacecraft.
It would be worth it just to build an alternative, and to get the public used to the idea of launching small nuclear reactors for spacecraft.
They should get some of those running at Glenn alongside the P-238 engines. May the best Stirling win.
DUFF appears to use the same tiny Stirling convertors.
Ah ok cool. Neat that it could be used with different radioactive fuel, gives flexibility.
$ 1 Billion to develop the decadel survey commissioned “small fission reactor” and it would be a decade away 🙂
NASA appears to be talking about small (40 kW) and very small (25 W) nuclear power sources. The plutonium is for the replacement very small systems.
Hank Green of SciShow said it best: “If Congress was on fire, they couldn’t pass the ‘Pour Water on Congress Act’.”
i suspect that DUFF is the replacement power source.
I wonder if you realize just how much that statement of DUFF as a “replacement power source” sounds like something that was thought up by Homer Simpson
…
“WOO-HOO!!”
Do we need to go the Russians yet again, with hat in hand?
—John
I thought NASA & DOE were generating 3 lbs of plutonium per year?
http://www.popsci.com/scien…
Maybe we can ask the Iranians or North Koreans if they can spare some plutonium from their nuclear programs? Sounds like the Russians are plum out.
Leave it to Congress to sit on a potential problem until it becomes an absolute show stopper (and then point fingers across the aisle and claim it was the other guy’s fault.)
This seems like a skipping record — the fact is reported and little changes; then time passes and the fact is reported and little changes; then …
One point that’s not been made clear from what I’ve read: is the problem just the amount of mined and processes plutonium, or is it a matter of the accessible ore being almost depleted? (and whose story do we believe?). Either way, perhaps we should be looking into thorium reactors, like the Chinese; if that nut can be cracked then the advantages would clearly seem to outweigh the disadvantages. Also, since there appear to be significant thorium resources on the Moon, in the long run thorium reactors would solve a lot of problems, not the least of which is eliminating the risk of launching radioactives from Earth, a danger which is still a roadblock to everybody’s space program. And it would be one more good reason for establishing one or more permanent manned lunar bases.
Did President Obama try to get this funded in his first NASA budget?
I read this article already and good to see it posted here too since it was a very well thought out and reported story. Kudos to Wired.
I find its interesting NASA needs Plutonium while the DOD is looking for some place to store its surplus Plutonium. Maybe the two should talk.
http://www.dcbureau.org/201…
Little Progress Disposing of 34 Metric Tons of Surplus Weapons Grade Plutonium
Seems to me you could power a few spacecraft with this 34 Metric Tons instead of just storing it.
wrong isotope of plutonium 🙂
The ESA is researching Americium as a deep space RTG source, but it has alpha particle radiation source issues, a number of years ago on another forum I suggested Americium with Plutonium 238 cladding to shield from alpha particles and to augment the Plutonium 238.
The Advanced Stirling Radioisotope Generator undergoing qualification stretches the Pu238 four times farther than the thermoelectric generator used on Curiosity. New generators with better efficiency are already in the pipeline.