- Original Message -
From: Robert J. Bradbury [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: Europa Icepick [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2001 7:55 AM
Subject: Re: Europa Orbiter's nuclear power source
On Thu, 11 Oct 2001, Bruce Moomaw wrote:
The US currently has enough domestic Pu-238
Plutonium does make a good case for itself in many ways...
1. There is an ample supply of weapons grade Pu available, because of the nuclear arms reductions in Russia and the US. We can get it cheap I'm sure on the black market.
2. We should use it just to annoy all the protesters that came
Correction on the 3x5 cards...
1 mile = 1.6093 Kilometers
I can see why I don't work for NASA now...
"Pardon my ignorance, but why hasn't there ever been a true alternative to rockets? It just seems so primitive to put all your goodies on top of a bomb, and shoot it up with brute force, when more elegant solutions may be possible. "
Using a "Hydrogen gas balloon" doesn't cut the safety issue.
Through http://agu.org/meetings/fm01glan.html (including many relevant ones
on Europa).
I haven't read any of them yet; but I did earlier construct a long list of
interesting ones for us (judging from the titles) that aren't in the
Planetary Sciences sessions, and will put it out here later
