'Plutonium pinch' nips NASA Shortage of fuel squeezes
exploration programme NASA's future solar system exploration
programme could be threatened by a shortage of plutonium-238,
New Scientist reports. Many of the agency's spacecraft rely on
the nuclear fuel, but the US no longer produces the stuff, and
despite previous estimates that the lack of plutonium-238
wouldn't bite until 2020, NASA is "already tightening its belt".
While missions such as Juno - slated to depart for Jupiter in
2011 - will rely on substantial solar arrays for power, this
technology isn't suitable for more distant destinations "or even
darkened regions closer to the sun, like the polar regions of
Mars".* Jim Green, head of NASA's planetary science division,
told NS: "Without the plutonium, there's just a huge dimension
of science we're going to be missing." One programme already
feeling the "plutonium pinch" is New Horizons, which recently
announced three contenders for a 2018 mission to either the
Moon, Venus or an asteroid. One of the c