NASA is running out of Plutonium 238. It's used for power generation on long distance probes that travel too far from the sun to utilize solar energy for power. Using this as an excuse, the department of energy is goin g to start making this poisonous millennium lasting material again next year. They are not talking about reprocessing the material from tens of thousands of nuclear weapons, they are talking about manufacturing new material.
I'm a strong space exploration advocate, but I have real problems with using NASA as an excuse to continue building our weapons grade stockpiles.
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Couldn't we use hamsters in exercise wheels to power the spacecraft after they leave our solar system? I think hamster food is cheaper than Plutonium 238, and the little guys could be our ambassadors to space.
Yes, I have heard grumbling about the dwindling supply of P-238 among planetary scientists (it's used for solar system probes). Unfortunately, the DOD and NASA have always had a rocky relationship so the DOD might not be quite so amenable to helping them out. For a good history of the early part of the space age, see The Heavens and the Earth by Walter McDougall...the book where I learned the ironic story of what happened to Telstar I, the world's first electronic telecommunication satellite.
It should be pointed out that Plutonium 238, which NASA wants to use, has a half life of 87 years (not thousands) and is not fissile and cannot be used in nuclear weapons. You may have gotten it mixed up with Plutonium 239, the stuff that is used in weapons with a half life of 24,000 years.
Breeder reactors don't make a distinction between P-238 and P239. Both are made and then processed into their separate forms. Making P238 WILL make P239.
My understanding is that P239 breaks down to.... P238. We have thousands of tons of P239. Reprocessing it would give the needed 238, wouldn't it?
Plutonium 239 undergoes alpha decay with a half life of 24,000 (ball park) years and forms Uranium 234 (an alpha particle is 2 protons and 2 neutrons).
Nuclear physics is not my specialty, but just a quick look around confirms there are a few different ways to produce plutonium 238, some of which produce more 239 than others. I don't know which manufacturing technique they are proposing to use here, so its hard to say what byproducts they would produce and in what quantities. A quick search reveals on technique that claims to be able to produce 95% pure Pu-238.
Either way, we are currently buying it from Russia. If the choice is the U.S. starting up production again or Russia starting production again, my choice is for the U.S.
If you could only trust what you hear.
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