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When I asked the team live on Google Hangout chat why they didn't use RTG, for a mission where solar power is a risky bet, their answer was that there were too
by abpavel 11y ago
When I asked the team live on Google Hangout chat why they didn't use RTG, for a mission where solar power is a risky bet, their answer was that there were too many political obstructions to getting any reasonable amount of fissile material on-board. I'm certain RTG would greatly increase the chances of mission success, given the reactors proven reliability and capacity, just like they serve our Voyagers.
- matt4077 11y agoNuclear material isn't going to 'fly' in Europe ever again. No use griping about it (Nor to pester the scientists when you already know the answer)
- pheoki 11y agoEver again? Why is this?
- gherkin0 11y agoMy guess is implacable anti-nuclear public opinion.
- teamhappy 11y agoI'm german and live approximately 30 miles away from a very big nuclear waste disposal site, which is one of the reasons I prefer solar/wind/etc. energy over nuclear. I don't see why anybody would be against using it for scientific purposes though (especially stuff happening in space).
- matt4077 11y agoBecause it's fissile material that somehow has to get into space, and the mechanism for that is 200tons of explosives controlled by 2 million movable parts each procured from the lowest bidder :)
- sillysaurus3 11y agoWhy not make a case about why this is a bad thing? Talking about it like it's incredibly obvious isn't really productive.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- kuschku 11y agoA complex system with each part optimized for being cheap, not for quality, is not going to be very reliable.
- nitrogen 11y agoPerhaps you should use actual statistics for launch and slingshot failures, because those numbers are actually available. Also consider that the design of an RTG probably takes those risks into account.
- antoinealb 11y agoHave you compared the price of consumer and space-grade hardware ? Probably not, otherwise you would realise it wasn't cost-optimized. example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAD750 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAD750 200'000 USD for a 200Mhz PowerPC isn't exactly the best bang-for-the buck, even in 2001.
- kuschku 11y agoThanks to trade treaties, ESA always has to use the cheapest available hardware that fulfils the requirements – no matter if other hardware is more reliable. This has been part of many discussions before – and it doesn’t just affect ESA. From government agencies which have to buy pencils that break after every use and are practically useless, to contractors building Autobahnen where the asphalt melts in the summer sun away.
- 11y ago
- themartorana 11y agoIt's not pestering, it's getting the opportunity to speak with scientists directly. I would ask the same thing. It doesn't matter if I "already know the answer" - I have no place at the table and assumptions that you're right are so often wrong.
- ComputerGuru 11y ago> Nuclear material isn't going to 'fly' in Europe ever again France (which is in Europe and part of the EU, obviously) is the biggest pro-nuclear energy nation in the world, and (together with the USA) has been on the forefront of exploration and development in that region. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_France https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_France
- metafunctor 11y agoI appreciate that science cannot operate in isolation of the rest of the world, what with all the economic and political realities and such. However, learning that politics was the reason to use an inferior power source for Philae makes me sad. Can anyone shed more light on what type of political problems would using RTG create? Something about weapons grade plutonium, perhaps? Or this being an European project, and we cannot possibly source the materials from the US? Or (and I hope this is not it) green “solar good, nuclear bad” dogma?
- ohyes 11y agoIt's the last thing.
- cjensen 11y agoThe concern was that performing a slingshot around Earth with a RTG-equiped probe has risks. If early in the mission the probe loses the ability to guide itself, then the probe may be off course enough to hit Earth. The Cassini mission to Saturn did this with an RTG, and there was a significant outcry about the plan.[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassini–Huygens#Plutonium_power_source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassini–Huygens#Plutonium_powe...
- sillysaurus3 11y ago"Had there been any malfunction causing the Cassini space probe to collide with the Earth, NASA's complete environmental impact study estimated that, in the worst case (with an acute angle of entry in which Cassini would gradually burn up), a significant fraction of the 33 kg of plutonium-238 inside the RTGs would have been dispersed into the Earth's atmosphere so that up to five billion people (i.e. almost the entire terrestrial population) could have been exposed, causing up to an estimated 5,000 additional cancer deaths (0.0005 per cent, i.e. a fraction 0.000005, of 1 billion cancer deaths expected anyway from other causes), but the chance of that happening were less than one in one million." Would it be true to say that your loved ones are thousands of times more likely to die in a car crash than in the worst-case scenario of this project? This is a stupid reason for having an outcry.
- darkhorn 11y agoNext time I hope they use RTG.
- wmeredith 11y agoWhat is RTG?
- joshbaptiste 11y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_generator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_ge...