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The plutonium shortage in NASA really has nothing to do with technology or science, but just politics. We simply stopped producing the stuff, but we could star
by daeken 12y ago
The plutonium shortage in NASA really has nothing to do with technology or science, but just politics. We simply stopped producing the stuff, but we could start again at any time; as the article you linked mentions, we're planning on doing so.
- sgt101 12y agoThere's enough plutonium to make 10,000 nukes stored in the Sellafield facility in Cumbria, England http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/vaults-will-store-the-nuclear-seeds-of-10000-nagasakis-more-than-half-of-the-worlds-stocks-of-plutonium-will-be-held-at-sellafield-by-the-end-of-the-century-1539730.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/vaults-will-store-the-n... So, there is no storage.
- maxerickson 12y agoIt isn't that simple: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutonium-238#Production http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutonium-238#Production Of course a program could be spun up to actually do the separation, but I think it might be sort of expensive.
- imdsm 12y agoI've been there as a child, if I'd have known that, I probably wouldn't have gone.