Good information. Nevertheless, in the long run wouldn't there be advantages to using a small reactor instead? Launch hazards are greatly reduced since uranium is virtually nontoxic compared to plutonium, power capabilities tend to be higher and fuel consumption rate can be varied to meet mission requirements.
Just received an interesting reply from the reporter. He disagreed with my statement that the tone of the article was too negative and provided some information indicating that the tone was in fact accurate. Don't think I can share all that here. We'll see what happens over the next few months with the budget battles.
This may not be Congress being jerks. The problem may be with OMB. I don't know.I know that it's popular on this board--as in the rest of the country--to blame Congress for everything that's wrong with American politics today. I'd just note that there are some good people in Congress (well, at least their staffs) trying to do things right. That's particularly true when it comes to the planetary science program where the allies are in Congress (not OMB).I'd also add that there's another possibly very positive development re the Pu-238 in the making. That's contingent upon some other things happening, but it could be a good thing. It's not totally surprising to me, but I can't provide any other details now. Maybe in six months or so we'll know.
If it comes to pass, it will be a glass half full/empty situation, meaning that NASA may still not be better off because the budget isn't there.That's kinda the story for planetary science. There are a LOT of missions that they can do. Interesting, even relatively small missions with high science quality. But there's no funding.
A rare exception is a private attempt to raise funds for a spacecraft to search for near earth asteroids from a sunward orbit.
First of all there are a number of important issues we are talking about here.1. Added Plutoium supply is insufficient to maintain current deep space exploration without new technology. The Mars rover required about 4 kg. The New Horizons missions required 11 kg. Cassini required 32,7 kg. A few calculations will tell you that we cannot sustain our current level of deep space exploration. NASA hopes that new technology like the ASTG will allow for use to do more with less, but it is still a huge problem.
2. Human exploration requires significant amounts of Pu-238 as well. Radioisotope heater units were used in Apollo to provide heat for missions that lasted days. While small nuclear reactors are probably what is going to be required for outposts, radio isotope heater units are ideal for smaller vehicles such as landers and rovers. Ultimately if we are to have a real manned spaceflight program that does surface missions we will need significant amounts of this stuff.
3. The DOD has been looking into using this stuff as well for a number of very useful applications. We should not assume that nasa is going to get all of it by default.