U.S. considers plutonium space rockets

[Lord Zentei]

U.S. considers plutonium space rockets

Friday, September 2, 2005 Posted: 1549 GMT (2349 HKT)

SALMON, Idaho (Reuters) -- The United States is poised to produce plutonium-238 for the first time since the end of the Cold War but it will be used for space missions, not weapons, officials said this week.

The U.S. Department of Energy will decide this fall whether to move forward with its proposal to produce the radioactive metal at a federal nuclear facility in southeast Idaho, a department spokesman said.

Under the $300 million plan, the Idaho National Laboratory would produce 11 pounds (5 kg) of plutonium-238 a year for 30 years starting in 2011. The non-weapons-grade plutonium is used to power everything from satellites to deep space probes, leading industry insiders to call the finished product "space batteries."

The proposal calls for half the batteries to be earmarked for NASA projects and the rest for undisclosed national security purposes.

The United States needs to produce plutonium because its stockpiles are low and because an agreement with Russia prevents it from using plutonium-238 produced there for security or defense applications, according to DOE analyses.

Idaho officials are endorsing the proposal but are in a dispute with the DOE over disposal of radioactive waste. They want written assurances that the estimated 5,500 gallons of contaminated waste generated each year by producing plutonium-238 would be hauled out of state.

"In my opinion, this would lay the foundation for Idaho to become a leader in our nation's space program," U.S. Senator Mike Crapo, a Republican, said in an interview. "This could make Idaho a significant part of NASA."

Most Idaho residents who attended public hearings this summer disapproved of the proposal, said Kathleen Trever, Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne's lab oversight coordinator.

"The negatives outweighed the positives but it was unclear to what extent that reflected the opinion of the general population," Trever said.

Idaho and the Department of Energy have been locked in a years-old conflict over cleanup of nuclear waste materials at the laboratory's sprawling complex near Idaho Falls. The complex overlies the Eastern Snake River Aquifer, one of the state's primary sources of drinking and irrigation water.

"We want to make sure we don't repeat problems of the past that led us to have waste with no clear disposal path," Trevor said.

[wilfulton]

Pu-238? I thought the good stuff was Pu-239. It is used in RTG (Radio-thermal generators) on craft destined to the outer solar system where solar power is too feeble to be of any practical use.

That's it's not weapons grade only means the concentration of fissionable material is too low to go boom.

[Sea Skimmer]

Fuck that, the US should begin producing nuclear material for nuclear devices. The current stockpile is very old and nuclear material, especially tritium, has a limited life. Unless production is restarted, the US could end up with a big pile of atomic firecrackers.

[Lord Zentei]

Pu-238? I thought the good stuff was Pu-239. It is used in RTG (Radio-thermal generators) on craft destined to the outer solar system where solar power is too feeble to be of any practical use.

That's it's not weapons grade only means the concentration of fissionable material is too low to go boom.

It's for glorified batteries, nothing more. Low key atomic power for generating electricity for long term missions. I doubt that we will see the political will to do more anytime soon.

Fuck that, the US should begin producing nuclear material for nuclear devices. The current stockpile is very old and nuclear material, especially tritium, has a limited life. Unless production is restarted, the US could end up with a big pile of atomic firecrackers.

Absolutely. I have to ask though, how old exactly is the current stockpile and it's youngest components?

[Winston Blake]

Pu-238? I thought the good stuff was Pu-239. It is used in RTG (Radio-thermal generators) on craft destined to the outer solar system where solar power is too feeble to be of any practical use.

Pu-238 is the one in them. Pu-239 produces nasty gamma rays and has a huge half-life, so it's not good for RTGs.

That's it's not weapons grade only means the concentration of fissionable material is too low to go boom.

Except Pu-238 isn't fissile, so no matter how pure it is you can't really make a bomb out of it.

[The Yosemite Bear]

w00t Orions kick ass

[Winston Blake]

Fuck that, the US should begin producing nuclear material for nuclear devices. The current stockpile is very old and nuclear material, especially tritium, has a limited life. Unless production is restarted, the US could end up with a big pile of atomic firecrackers.

Well, Pu-239 and U-235 have half-lives of 24000 and 700 million years, so i'm guessing they shouldn't be a problem, and the US already has plans to restart tritium production:

According to DOE, resumption of tritium production is essential for maintaining the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile. [...] DOE is responsible for re-establishing the capability to produce tritium by the end of 2005, in accordance with a Presidential directive.

[WyrdNyrd]

Well, Pu-239 and U-235 have half-lives of 24000 and 700 million years, so i'm guessing they shouldn't be a problem,

Random thought - just how dangerous is it to be around U235? With such a long half-life, surely that would mean very little radiation, making it "safe"? Yet I had always assumed that to be around concentrated, unshielded U235 would be instant death? Was I just buying into anti-nuclear paranoia?

[Nephtys]

Well, Pu-239 and U-235 have half-lives of 24000 and 700 million years, so i'm guessing they shouldn't be a problem,

Random thought - just how dangerous is it to be around U235? With such a long half-life, surely that would mean very little radiation, making it "safe"? Yet I had always assumed that to be around concentrated, unshielded U235 would be instant death? Was I just buying into anti-nuclear paranoia?

You are. Handling solid blocks of U235 aren't good for you certainly, but you're not going to melt. A few hours of exposure is required to do real harm to you.

As for Plutonium, being near it could be fatal very quickly. But not due to radiation. PU is naturally highly, highly toxic.

[Coyote]

Soon, Idaho will launch is sooper-amazing Nuclear Spud Gun into orbit and you will all bow down before us as we go salmon fishing. Just pay your taxes direct to Boise and no one gets hurt.

Actually, the "Noooks Baaaad!" crowd will never let this get off the ground, literally or figuratively. The launch of Cassini brought a lot of paranoids out, imagine what this would do?

[Nephtys]

They'd do a doomsday theory prediction that if the rocket explodes, precisely enough atoms to kill a human being will be spread equally to every human in the US, killing everybody.

It's like those old nuclear death projections of killing the world 5-10-20 times over, which assumed the world's population would gather in perfect circles around a nuclear bomb.

[Pezzoni]

I'm wondering what percentage of those who are up in arms about this actually have any ideas about nuclear technology...

(Not a dig at anyone on here objecting... It seems like your all smart enough... More thinking about those referenced in the article).

[The Yosemite Bear]

and how many hard sci fi fans are just grinning ear to ear over the thought of us actually building an Orion/first stage ion propulsion rocket system.

[SirNitram]

and how many hard sci fi fans are just grinning ear to ear over the thought of us actually building an Orion/first stage ion propulsion rocket system.

Bear, a plutonium battery or thermal engine is not an Orion and bears almost no resemblence..

[Lord Zentei]

and how many hard sci fi fans are just grinning ear to ear over the thought of us actually building an Orion/first stage ion propulsion rocket system.

Bear, a plutonium battery or thermal engine is not an Orion and bears almost no resemblence..

Unfortunately, this is no more than a long-life electricity source. Orion will only materialize if the nuclear test ban treaty can somehow be amended, and I doubt there is much chance of that happening.

[SirNitram]

and how many hard sci fi fans are just grinning ear to ear over the thought of us actually building an Orion/first stage ion propulsion rocket system.

Bear, a plutonium battery or thermal engine is not an Orion and bears almost no resemblence..

Unfortunately, this is no more than a long-life electricity source. Orion will only materialize if the nuclear test ban treaty can somehow be amended, and I doubt there is much chance of that happening.

Orion is also a bad idea. A catastrophic idea, today.

[Lord Zentei]

Orion is also a bad idea. A catastrophic idea, today.

Quite: I'm not sure if anyone is keen on detonating several hundred kiloton range bombs in the atmosphere even if it means we get a powerful launch vehicle. There are other ways.

[tharkûn]

Orion is also a bad idea. A catastrophic idea, today.

Orion is fine if you build and launch it from the right place; there still are windows of space-time where you could EMP to your heart's content and not cause major damage. Certainly if you assembled Orion above the atmosphere (like say going for the Super Orion and having an mobile interstellar city) it could be launched with no chance of catastrophy.

The big problem is that Orion can only be used for bigass missions, does have be launched in the middle of friggen nowhere/high orbit, and violates a few international treaties. There simply is no practical purpose for which Orion could be used.

NERVA on the other hand might well be cheaper, more efficient, and ridiciously cleaner than traditional rockets. Chemical rockets have theoretical limits that impose ceilings on rocketry efficiency, long term spaceflight needs more efficient mechanisms for climbing the gravity well. Either we need to find something really bloody close to unobtanium for tethers or we need to look at more efficient propulsion - which pretty much means nuclear.

[The Jester]

Random thought - just how dangerous is it to be around U235? With such a long half-life, surely that would mean very little radiation, making it "safe"?

While it is true that U235 has a long half-life, the products of it's decay do not and are very highly radioactive.

[Lord Zentei]

More on this:

Feasibility of Future Nuclear-Powered Spacecraft Not Yet Known

NASA should commission detailed mission studies to examine the feasibility, performance, cost, and complexity of using nuclear-powered spacecraft for future robotic and human missions, says a new report from the National Research Council. Although nuclear power appears to have significant advantages for a variety of exploration missions, NASA should determine first if the required technologies are fast, efficient, safe, and affordable, the report says.

Priorities in Space Science Enabled by Nuclear Power and Propulsion (Linka)

Committee on Priorities for Space Science Enabled by Nuclear Power and Propulsion, National Research Council

Unfortunately, the full report is not yet published. Here's a description, though:

In 2003, NASA began an R&D effort to develop nuclear power and propulsion systems for solar system exploration. This activity, renamed Project Prometheus in 2004, was initiated because of the inherent limitations in photovoltaic and chemical propulsion systems in reaching many solar system objectives. To help determine appropriate missions for a nuclear power and propulsion capability, NASA asked the NRC for an independent assessment of potentially highly meritorious missions that may be enabled if space nuclear systems became operational. This report provides a series of space science objectives and missions that could be so enabled in the period beyond 2015 in the areas of astronomy and astrophysics, solar system exploration, and solar and space physics. It is based on but does not reprioritize the findings of previous NRC decadal surveys in those three areas.