Talk:Plutonium-238

Space missions that used Plutonium-238

List is incomplete, please add to it

Country	Spacecraft	Launch date	Mission	Amount used	Remarks
	Tansit-4A	1961-06-29	U.S. Navy Navigation	[1]
	New Horizons	2006-01-19	Flyby of Pluto	11 kilograms (24 lb)[2]
	Curiosity	2011-11-26	Mars rover	3.5 kilograms (7.7 lb)[3]

Additional sources

• Advanced Stirling Radioisotope Generator Development
• Using Nuclear Fuel for Future NASA Missions Gets Boost
• Kramer, David (2011). "Shortage of plutonium-238 jeopardizes NASA's planetary science missions". Physics Today. 64: 24. doi:10.1063/1.3541938.
• Planetary exploration’s radioactive decay
• NASA Science Officials: News Not Entirely Bleak for Mars, PU-238 Restart Still Needed
• US Pu-238 Production Remains Unfunded
• Assessment of Plutonium-238 Production Alternatives
• Role and prospects
• Maharik, Michael; Fischhoff, Baruch (1993). "Public views of using nuclear energy sources in space missions". Space Policy. 9 (2): 99. doi:10.1016/0265-9646(93)90023-3.
• Aftergood, Steven (1989). "Background on space nuclear power". Science & Global Security. 1: 93. doi:10.1080/08929888908426325.

Is Pu-238 fissile

I don't think so.

But https://www.tech-faq.com/types-of-nuclear-fuel.html reads in part

The known fissile materials are: Uranium-233 Uranium-235 Plutonium-238 Plutonium-239 Plutonium-241 Neptunium-237 Curium-244...

which is a bit of a worry. See fissile. It's no wonder people get confused.

That page was most recently archived at

https://web.archive.org/web/20200915000000*/https://www.tech-faq.com/types-of-nuclear-fuel.html

just in case it has now been corrected. Andrewa (talk) 15:31, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

The Neptunium article indicates that Np237 will fission with fast neutrons, suggesting that a bomb is possible. It doesn't fission with slow neutrons, as in a reactor. Note that U238 fissions with fast (enough) neutrons, but not enough to make a bomb. Fissile (fissionable with slow neutrons) usually means an odd number of neutrons. Gah4 (talk) 11:30, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

A recent edit says that it is fissile. Usually it is odd N that are fissile, and Pu238 is even N. I didn't check the sources, though. Gah4 (talk) 06:14, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Cold War Science

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 18 January 2022 and 6 May 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Barr0069 (article contribs).