On Wednesday, October 11, 2023 at 10:46:57 PM UTC-6, RichA wrote:
PRAY, the outlandish solar "wings" unfurl correctly. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-psyche-journey-ancient-asteroid.html
NASA needs to request from the U.S. gov't enough money to build its
own large research reactor to make plutonium 238.
Surely you mean Plutonium-239? That's the stuff that is easy to make, just bombard common Uranium-238 with neutrons, and then wait for the resulting Uranium 239 to decay, first to Neptunium-239 and then to Plutonium-239 through two beta decays?
I just recently found out, though, that Plutonium-239 made that way is contaminated
with enough Plutonium-240 for that to be the reason why A-bombs made with plutonium need to have spherical cores with a large number of subcritical fragments
combined - while pure Uranium-235 can work with just two pieces being smashed together by a conventional explosive. I knew from the old illustrations that there was
this difference between the uranium bomb and the plutonium bomb, but I hadn't known why. Certainly it makes sense, though - hit U-238 with neutrons, and of course
some nuclei will get hit twice.
John Savard
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