> It is indeed spherical frictionless cow-ly possible if we spend a trillion dollars to increase ORNL's annual Pu production capacity so that it doesn't take 20

> It is indeed spherical frictionless cow-ly possible if we spend a trillion dollars to increase ORNL's annual Pu production capacity so that it doesn't take 200 years to make 600kg of Pu-238. Oh come on, we used to make so much more of it. I see estimates that it costs 4 million dollars per pound, plus some scaling costs? A trillion dollars is not even close to "spherical frictionless cow" when the benchmark is "humanity's current technological capabilities", and a few billion is basically nothing at that scale. > When someone demonstrates a complex device (let's set aside power generation how about a valve? Or a capacitor?) that can last a century in space I'll agree that it is actually possible. Is a bunch of stuff lasting 50 years not good evidence? What is your threshold for "demonstrate", do we have to wait 200 years before you can be convinced?