You SPACE.com -- Plutonium Shortage May Thwart Future NASA Missions to Outer Planets

NASA is facing the prospect of trying to explore deep space without the aid of the long-lasting nuclear batteries it has relied upon for decades to send spacecraft to destinations where sunlight is in short supply.

NASA Administrator Mike Griffin told a House Appropriations subcommittee March 5 that the U.S. inventory of plutonium-238 - the radioactive material essential for building long-lasting batteries known to the experts as radioisotope power systems - is running out quickly.

"Looking ahead, plutonium is in short supply," Griffin told lawmakers during the first of two days of hearings on the U.S. space agency's 2009 budget request.

[From SPACE.com -- Plutonium Shortage May Thwart Future NASA Missions to Outer Planets]

You know things are hurting when the world's only nuclear superpower is running out of plutonium-238. Or maybe it isn't. Maybe what they mean is "we don't have more plutonium-238 for you to waste in missions we find useless."

I find it weird that the Russians are down to their last 10 kilograms of it. How do we know they didn't decide to crank up nuke production and send us back to Cold War #2? Or maybe we are the ones doing this?



By the way, according to Wikipedia we have purchased 16.5 kilograms from them.