Budget decay kills NASA plutonium drive project Budget cuts have forced NASA to mothball its Advanced Stirling Radioisotope Generator (ASRG), a power plant designed to help the agency run projects to the outer planets. The ASRG was a decade-long development project designed to get the most out of space craft using plutonium-238 as fuel in applications where solar power won' …
"I predict that the only productive output of all the recently announced rich-guys-mining-asteroids projects will be U-235, enabling an end run around the pussies who won't let us put more reactors up on rockets."
NASA does not put nuclear reactors on rockets.
The US has not flown a nuclear reactor in space since 1965.
A reactor would be a lot safer.
Seriously: a radio-isotope power source is as "hot" as it will ever be at launch. If the launch fails, some fairly short-lived really horribly radioactive crap gets showered into the atmosphere or the ocean.
A reactor could be launched unfuelled and then fuelled in orbit. Fuel is subcritical pieces of enriched Uranium, suitably packaged. If launch of those failed, pure Uranium (enriched or otherwise) is a lot less harmful than the contents of a radioisotope source. U235 has a half-life of over a billion years. That's almost non-radioactive, unless you build a supercritical assembly and add neutrons.
After it's assembled in orbit, take the reactor critical and take the spacecraft out exploring on ion drive. It won't ever come back. (To be absolutely sure give it enough fuel to reach Jupiter or wherever, and not enough to make a return flight). Once the reactor has been running for a while it'll be plenty radioactive (and unscreened). But also plenty far away enough to be safe!
"Seriously: a radio-isotope power source is as "hot" as it will ever be at launch. If the launch fails, some fairly short-lived really horribly radioactive crap gets showered into the atmosphere or the ocean."
Erm, Plutonium is embarrassingly long lived. Well, embarrassing to your point, that is.
Pu-238 has a half life of 87.74 years.
The current thermoelectric generators operate off of the decay heat of that Plutonium.
Plutonium also has the distinction of being one of the most toxic of artificial radioisotopes.
Now, a reactor uses far more uranium (plutonium can be used, but it's not really practical due to expense. Thorium can be used, but there is currently no microgravity rated design to separate out various "poisoning" isotopes that would halt a reactor) than an RTG though. Many, many kilograms more.
Plus really nasty, toxic metals.
Now, think of the last few Russian fireworks displays that were supposed to be orbital shots. Think of a handful of tons of really nasty metals and hundreds at a minimum of kilograms of uranium raining from the sky.
Compared to a few pounds of that PU-238. In a hardened, small and survivable unit (note the design in the video, including the aeroshell).
I'll go with the RTG. Less chance of a loss of containment in a launch accident than a reactor.
"Is that true?"
Yes.
Reactors put out a distinct radiation signature that is just too awkward to shield. That's how the US knew the Russians were running them for their "ocean surveillance" radar sats.
I'm quite sure if the US were running some "black" reactor powered sats the Soviet Union (as it was) would have been keen to expose the fact.
"Or are we talking about the difference between a Reactor and Radio-Isotope source?"
We are. At one point the US was keen to ship a couple of Soviet Sat power reactors over to test run them. Trouble was the agency most interested (The Strategic Defense Initiative Organization) had sort of lost it's reason d'etre when the Berlin Wall came down.
"The New Horizons craft has a nuclear power plant. It was launched in 2006 and has flown past Jupiter and will reach Pluto in 2015."
Wrong.
New Horizons has one 250 watt radioisotope thermal generator. 250 watt, 30 volt unit. By the time it reaches Pluto, it'll be down to 200 watts.
That particular RTG holds 10.9 kg (24 lb) of Plutonium-238.
A 250 watt nuclear reactor would be quite a sight to see, as you'd need a self-sustaining fission reaction with far, far, far, far less fissionables than the laws of physics allow.
"A 250 watt nuclear reactor would be quite a sight to see, as you'd need a self-sustaining fission reaction with far, far, far, far less fissionables than the laws of physics allow."
Actually IIRC NASA's 1st test run to connect a live reactor to a Stirling generator was (IIRC) about 20W, done in < 6months with a shoestring budget.
And yes it was reported in El Reg and was not too long ago.
This was of course just a proof of concept. BTW you forgot the #1 way to shrink reactors is to increase the enrichment.
IIRC the SNAP design ran about 97% U235.
damn community organizer has no heart, no soul. He has NASA spending money on Muslim Outreach! What the hell does that have to do with space exploration?
We need things like this for our kid's future and he's doing his best to eliminate it. Between the borrowing, the Fed deficit, and Obamacare - we're screwed.
Obama's doing his best to eliminate it? I vote moron for this guy. It's Congress/the Senate who allocate spending priorities & NASA's just got to make do. I'd like to see SLS dumped and the money freed up used for a whole series of probes/orbiters/landers for Mars, the Jovian moons, Saturn & its moons and, given the long lead time due to distance, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto & the Kuiper belt & Oort cloud.
Don't hold your breath though...
1. Obama has not had a budget approved since he's been in office.
2. Democrats held total power in both House & Senate first two years of office.
3. NASA is a space agency, not a muslim outreach touchy-feely State Department.*
4. More folks sit on their asses and take government tax money than work in this country & I place that right on Obama's doorstep - He (and his little buddies) have disabled fraud protections and have made it easier to lie for your Obamaphone, SNAP, and actual cash disbursements. That is where an increasing majority of the Fed cash is spent.
This is not sustainable - the Chinese will want their money back some day and Obama will be long gone.
* note he killed the Space Shuttle too.
Here's a better one:
http://www.cbo.gov/topics/national-security
20% of the US federal budget spent on the military. Far more than the top half dozen allies she has.
Meanwhile, meatheads bitch about Social Security, which is something paid for over one's lifetime as a retirement system that is woefully inadequate.
They bitch about food and medicine for poor children.
They bitch about being made to get health care insurance.
Shit, they bitch when they're not allowed to starve large groups of people to death.
The US is a permafailtrain of formaldehyde-laden FEMA trailers full of bad decision making and of non-decision making by a bunch of well-moneyed bipartisan controlfreaks.
NASA’s Plutonium Problem Could End Deep-Space Exploration
"Any hiccups in funding for plutonium-238 production could put planetary science into a tailspin and delay, strip down, or smother nuclear-powered missions. The outlook among scientists is simultaneously optimistic and rattled.
The reason: It took countless scientists and their lobbyists more than 15 years just to get lawmakers’ attention. A dire 2009 report about “The Problem,” authored by more than five dozen researchers, ultimately helped slip the first earnest funding request into the national budget in 2009. Congressional committees squabbled over if and how to spend $20 million of taxpayers’ money — it took them three years to make up their minds."
And don't get me started on "Obamacare" which turns out to be just another voter trolling biz. Are the troops out of Afghanistan yet, "Head Held High"? Yeah. How about Obama's "Asian Pivot" (i.e. encircling the nation that holds a few trillion of your debt and is an important trading partner). Yeah ... that nation. At least we have Janet Yellen with her hand on the money-printing press. Hold on to your gonads, that nation is going places real soon now.
NASA had supply problems from day one with hurdles created by the NRC limiting Plutonium acquisition.
Of course, the NRC is rather picky about anything that glows in the dark...
As for Afghanistan, my cousin died on the 84th floor of the south tower. His grave is empty, as no remains were found of him.
I'll not go into idiots who suggested nuking Iraq in retaliation for 9-11, then when they figured out that Afghanistan wasn't inside of Iraq, wanted to nuke both and the entire Middle East.
Or how many Americans *still* think that Afghanistan is in the Middle East...
But then, I recall another nation doing something similar with China. Does the Opium Wars ring any bells?
But, you do have a point. The US is most certainly going places. Straight to hell in a hand basket.
Largely not due to "a permafailtrain of formaldehyde-laden FEMA trailers full of bad decision making and of non-decision making by a bunch of well-moneyed bipartisan controlfreaks", but due to idiocracy.
"If you include in that farmers and everyone that works in the defense industry - then yes."
I think quite a lot of people in Colorado could also be described as "Welfare Queens"
Mine's the one with a copy of "Interface" (by the guy who wrote The Diamond Age and Snow Crash).in it.
"More folks sit on their asses and take government tax money than work in this country & I place that right on Obama's doorstep - He (and his little buddies) have disabled fraud protections and have made it easier to lie for your Obamaphone, SNAP, and actual cash disbursements. That is where an increasing majority of the Fed cash is spent.
<snip from blather>
* note he killed the Space Shuttle too.?
What a fucking inbred moron!
Let's start with the space shuttle. The one BUSH THE LESSER killed. The program ended, buy order of Bush the Lesser, during the Obama administration.
How *horrible* The Emperor should have shat out money to support a closed down program, order upon pain of death, the reopening of vendors who owned the patents on components of the shuttle, but closed their doors in retirement!
Meanwhile, the fucktard commenter forgot the lions share of the federal budget, the military. With *most* federal tax dollars going down that naked singularity.
All the while embracing that Romney bullshit, which matched no real numbers save what he pulled out of his ass. Especially as the *real* number is much higher!
How *dare* those progressives stop child labor, permit seniors to collect their pensions in retirement and not starve the disabled to death?!
Some people are so god damned stupid, they should not be permitted to procreate!
"We need things like this for our kid's future and he's doing his best to eliminate it. Between the borrowing, the Fed deficit, and Obamacare - we're screwed."
So much fucking stupid, I'm convinced that the Athenians had the right of it in not permitting idiots to vote. Only the well educated professional could vote.
Apparently, our good village idiot here forgot that the US isn't an empire, the emperor doesn't make a budget up and it's law. Congress approves a budget and programs, the President then signs it into law or vetoes it (Congress can then override that veto by a 2/3 supermajority, which is rather uncommon largely because it's hard to get 2/3 of Congress to even agree on when to break for lunch (or even the necessity of respiring)).
The United States of America. Not a democracy, a republic in name, an idiocracy in reality.
I doubt that.
Historically only certain kinds of "high neutron flux" reactor have been used to make the fuel for NASA's TEG's but I think people are realizing that the US has a lot of commercial reactors that could take a specially loaded fuel pin or two. Individually their output would be small but with 10-20 of them it adds up to a tidy haul.
That said this technology did give about 28% output over the 7% currently.
I think this story sounds like bull$hit.
It sounds like an invented story to allow the gradual introduction of a much safer and effective power source based on LENR:
http://coldfusionnow.org/george-h-miley-at-nets-lets-find-out-whats-there/
http://researchpark.illinois.edu/directory/lenuco
Yep, that means cold fusion. It is real. Many people are racing to commercialize it right now.
In this instance, it is being developed by NASA and The University of Illinois.
Why all the secrecy? Well, you know....only the end of the fossil-fueled industries that run the world.
That might have something to do with it...
You can't "preserve" Pu238. It decays. You use it or you lose it. Unless they have an alternative use for it, cancelling the project makes no sense. Particularly in the reason given for the cancellation. The stuff works by harnessing the decay heat. All they've come up with is a more efficient way of using it. And even then, you throw away most of the heat.
The Russians have enough Pu238 knocking around to sell some to the Chinese for their lunar program*, why not buy it from them?
Oh yeah, national pride. As my mum always says, pride always comes before a fall.
* Source:
http://translate.google.co.uk/translate?sl=ru&tl=en&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http://www.atomic-energy.ru/news/2012/06/21/34286&act=url
What neat little engines Stirling engines are. I watch machinist-porn on Youtube, and MrPete222(Tubalcain) did a series of videos on Stirling engines earlier this year. I never knew such things existed until I saw his videos. If you've a mechanical bent, and are unfamiliar with Stirling engines, look him up on Youtube. He's an old, retired machinist who's taken a liking to the new fangled Internet.
"Rather proves that the ancient Athenians had the right of it."
Careful, people might say you're an elitist (or you've read a lot of Heinlein)
Actually it could be argued that the US is an Aristocracy as it's looking as in "The best rule."
By "best" I mean
Well connected
Well inherited
Well financed.
I am working on a variant of this right now, seems that the secret sauce is potassium-40 aka 40K
In this case the theory is that distributing 40K atoms within a superconductor then irradiating the assembly with tuned microwaves allows them to decay much more quickly due to quantum effects and therefore extracting useful energy in the process in the form of easily handled low energy betas.
The critical temperature is a useful way to moderate the reaction, if you let it heat up the whole thing stops.
The main advantages of this are safety and being able to ship "Zero Point Modules" by mail without causing any problems as the reaction only works at <200K.
If SrTiO3 with small inclusions of ZnS:Ag:Cu are used however then the reaction also emits light and *might* be somewhat self sustaining once activated with the failsafe mentioned earlier.
Also when the 40K runs out it stops working so thin ceramic layers like a battery might be a good idea for reprocessing.
If you would like a copy of the paper please send a message with the word "Eureka" to 07839796663
Thanks!
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