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> Buy it from ... whom? As the article points out, Russia "reneged on a deal to sell 22 pounds to the U.S." and might not have any left for sale. Now, that's i
by tanzam75 13y ago
> Buy it from ... whom? As the article points out, Russia "reneged on a deal to sell 22 pounds to the U.S." and might not have any left for sale.
Now, that's interesting.
The Chinese are planning to land an RTG-powered spacecraft on the moon in December 2013. That's just 3 months away. Evidently they managed to get hold of some Pu-238 to power their spacecraft with.
Either they manufactured the isotope themselves, or they outbid us for the 22 pounds that Russia was planning to sell.
- dalke 13y agoInteresting indeed! There's talk about it at http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?PHPSESSID=a4sdshu2jb19cmbhm4qj3uggq7&topic=26848.0;all http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?PHPSESSID=a4sdshu... . The best they found is this quote: > "The nuclear power system will make China the third country apart from the United States and Russia to be able to apply nuclear technology to space exploration," Ouyang said. Various newspaper article use that quote to say it was domestic production. Parsed carefully, that doesn't say that they created the RTG, only that they applied it.