Date: Fri, 15 Mar 2013 18:42:54 -0400
From: mark <whitroth at 5-cent.us>
To: undisclosed-recipients:;
Subject: [WSFA] Good news, for real: U.S. Starts Making Plutonium (again)
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>

Excerpt:
After a 25-year hiatus, the Unites States has produced its first
non-weapons grade plutonium needed to power space probes when solar
energy won'=C2=80=C2=99t suffice.

NASA has been using a radioactive material called plutonium-238 to power
its deep space probes since the 1970s.

The nuclear-powered spacecraft include the twin Voyager probes, now
heading out of the solar system, the Mars Viking landers, the Galileo
and Cassini missions at Jupiter and Saturn, respectively, and most
recently the Mars Curiosity rover, which is seven months into a planned
two-year mission.

The plutonium naturally radiates heat as it decays, which can be
converted into electricity with a device known as a radioisotope
thermoelectric generator, or RTG.
--- end excerpt ---

<http://news.discovery.com/space/nasa-plutonium-production-space-fuel-130=314.htm>

And no, you can't use solar, esp. when you're going *away* from the sun, =

a long distance, such as Mars and outward.

        mark