Surplus weapons-grade plutonium: a resource for exploring and terraforming Mars

Conference · Tue Dec 31 04:00:00 EST 1996

OSTI ID:459781

Muscatello, A C; Houts, M G

With the end of the Cold War, greater than 100 metric tons (MT) of weapons-grade plutonium (WGPu) have become surplus to defense needs in the United States and the Former Soviet Union. This paper is a proposal for an option for WGPu disposition, i.e., use of the plutonium as a fuel for nuclear reactors for Mars exploration and eventual terraforming. WGPu was used in nuclear weapons because it has a much smaller critical mass than highly enriched uranium, allowing lighter weapons with consequent longer ranges. Similarly, WGPu reactors would also require smaller amounts of fuel to attain a critical mass, making the reactor much lighter overall and resulting in large savings in launch costs. The greater than 100 MT of WGPu would generate about 1000 billion kilowatt hours of heat energy, much of which could be converted into electricity. The waste heat would also be useful to a Martian outpost or colony. A potential way of getting the WGPu reactors into space is a large gas gun like that being developed at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to orbit materials by achieving high velocity at the surface, greatly reducing launch costs and enhancing reliability. Reactor components would be launched on conventional rockets or space shuttles, the reactor fuel rods would be injected into orbit using the gas gun, and the reactor would be assembled in space. Implementation of this proposal would allow disposition of a serious, expensive problem on earth by removing the WGPu from the planet and simultaneously provide a very large energy resource for Mars exploration and terraforming.

• Research Organization: Los Alamos National Lab., NM (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Assistant Secretary for Human Resources and Administration, Washington, DC (United States)
• DOE Contract Number: W-7405-ENG-36
• OSTI ID: 459781
• Report Number(s): LA-UR--96-4463; CONF-9607179--1; ON: DE97003139
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

05 NUCLEAR FUELS
21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS
35 ARMS CONTROL
EXPLORATION
FUEL FABRICATION PLANTS
LAUNCHING
MARS PLANET
NESDPS Office of Nuclear Energy Space and Defense Power Systems
NUCLEAR FUELS
NUCLEAR WEAPONS
NUCLEAR WEAPONS DISMANTLEMENT
PLUTONIUM
PROLIFERATION
RADIOACTIVE WASTE DISPOSAL
RADIOACTIVE WASTE MANAGEMENT
REACTOR COMPONENTS
SPACE POWER REACTORS