0h18m15s14f NoMusic - Powering Space Missions: Mars Curiosity's Plutonium RTG 100 Watts. TR2016a
Channel: Thorium Remix
Date: 2017-05-20

http://ThoriumRemix.com/ But what about powering space exploration?

Most of our RTG fuel, the Plutonium-238, was created a quarter century ago.

NASA started producing more in 2013, but the worldwide shortage of RTG fuel is a perpetual constraint on space missions.

And while our tiny supply of Plutonium-238 can power exploration missions lasting decades anywhere in our solar system, the radioactive decay of Plutonium really does not provide much power.

Curiosity runs on 100 watts. 

Rolling across the surface of Mars, taking photos, grinding samples, detecting neutrons, monitoring the atmosphere, and sending all this data back to us…

Curiosity does all of this on 2 incandescent light bulbs worth of power.