A reader remarks about the New Horizons Pluto probe:
Most of that warmth from “electrical systems” is actually coming from that lump of Pu-238 that’s powering everything. You do know that we are precariously short on Pu-238, right? (Heck, it may have been on your blog that I first that bit of information!)
Nyah, I didn’t tell you. I had heard tell – a while ago – that we were short radioactive material for use in medical scanners. That was molybdenum-99m. Pu-238 is used
… as the heat source in radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs).
Universe Today shares the possibility of restarting production:
The end of NASA’s plutonium shortage may be in sight. On Monday March 18th, [2013,] NASA’s planetary science division head Jim Green announced that production of Plutonium-238 (Pu-238) by the United States Department of Energy (DOE) is currently in the test phases leading up to a restart of full scale production.
Just to top it off, remember the protests against the use of RTGs in the Cassini probe?
