The USA begins producing plutonium-238 again for the first time in 25 years!

….The U.S. Department of Energy’s plutonium reboot has not yet advanced beyond the test phase, but NASA is confident that production will eventually ramp up enough to power space probes for several decades to come….

Date: 19 March 2013

The United States has begun producing plutonium-238 again for the first time in a quarter century, marking a key step toward averting a feared shortage of this important spacecraft fuel, NASA officials say.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s plutonium reboot has not yet advanced beyond the test phase, but NASA is confident that production will eventually ramp up enough to power space probes for several decades to come.

“That’s going to revive our supply and allow us to be able to complete a number of potential plutonium-necessary missions over this decade, and position us well into the decade after that,” Jim Green, head of NASA’s planetary science division, said Monday (March 18) at the 44th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in The Woodlands, Texas.

http://www.space.com/20290-plutonium-spacecraft-nasa-fuel.html

…Plutonium-238 is not a bomb making material, unlike its isotopic cousin plutonium-239. But Pu-238 is radioactive, emitting heat that can be converted to electricity using a device called a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG)….

http://sagansense.tumblr.com/post/45794511491/electricspacekoolaid-us-makes-first-plutonium

March 20, 2013 - Posted by arclight2011 | Uncategorized