ORNL achieves milestone with plutonium-238 sample

ornl.gov

45 points·aurhum··9 comments

Just for clarification, this is fuel for RTGs which power spacecraft that are far away from the sun, not fuel for spacecraft propulsion.

This is great news. My understanding from when I worked at JPL was thst NASA only had enough plutonium for about one more large RTG for the Mars 2020 mission (to power Curiosity 2.0). While RTGs are essential for deep space missions, they are also useful for closer destinations.

Two of the NASA missions are pretty much spoken for 1) Mars Science Lander 2 in 2020 2) Mission to Europa

Hate to be a negative nancy...

..But we're making a fuss about restarting the production of something we'd already mastered, and we first made in 1941?

I'll be more interested when an American commercial breeder reactor comes online.

Production was suspended for 30 years. Resumption seems pretty noteworthy. Nobody is claiming this is some sort of first, and if it doesn't interest you, then move on. If you're interested in deep space probes then this is pretty important. If not, it's not.

Url changed from http://www.livescience.com/53227-plutonium-238-created-for-s..., which is cribbed from this press release. Like most of the science PR mills, that one does not link to its sources.

Thanks for that. I tried to find a better link, but my google-fu got stuck in 2015 it seems :)

This is a better link than the current one in the headline:

https://www.ornl.gov/news/ornl-achieves-milestone-plutonium-...

It's more recent (Dec 22nd, 2015) and discusses a new achievement: first production of Pu-238 in the USA in 30 years.

Oh indeed, that's the one we want. Thanks! Changed from https://www.ornl.gov/news/making-fuel-exploring-space-0.

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