Business Insider by Dave Mosher 10/6/2017
Most places in the solar system can't be reached without nuclear energy.
NASA uses plutonium-238 forged during the Cold War to power its most ambitious missions.
NASA is running low on the material, but the Department of Energy is making more.
However, a government report suggests production challenges might impact NASA's future nuclear-powered missions.
Classroom models lie. Our solar system isn't a bunch of bright orbs nestled closely together.
Instead, planets and moons are separated from Earth by unfathomable distances — often too remote, dim, and cold for any spacecraft to explore on solar power.
The good news is that we have plutonium-238: a radioisotope (or radioactive form of an element) whose heat can be converted into electricity. When placed inside devices called radioisotope power sources (RPS), plutonium-238 can keep NASA's most epic missions going for decades.
The problem is that nearly all Pu-238 was last forged during the Cold War, and NASA's mission-ready material may be exhausted within eight years, according to a Government Accountability Office report released Wednesday.
Though the Department of Energy is working to create more plutonium, the news report said problems with that program "may be jeopardizing NASA's ability to use RPS as a power source for future missions."
If NASA hits a plutonium bottleneck, the future of deep-space exploration could hang in the balance for untold years.
More:
http://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-nuclear-battery-plutonium-238-production-shortage-2017-8
