Hacker News Reader

Comment by os2warpman | Hacker News Reader

I agree with you.

It is indeed spherical frictionless cow-ly possible if we spend a trillion dollars to increase ORNL's annual Pu production capacity so that it doesn't take 200 years to make 600kg of Pu-238.

When someone demonstrates a complex device (let's set aside power generation how about a valve? Or a capacitor?) that can last a century in space I'll agree that it is actually possible.

That's what "current level of technology" means. The lego bricks exist, now, today, preferably in stock ready for immediate shipment on Digikey, and can be snapped into place.

View on HN

I did say it's politically infeasible.

Producing 600kg of Pu-238 is entirely technically feasible with current level of technology, as it has already been done when the US and USSR built their stockpiles.

Current level of technology means things we are capable of achieving right now, it does not mean that the pieces literally exist ready to use, unless you genuinely believe that the thousands of satellites orbitting our planet are not part of the current level of technology because they're purpose built without using off-the-shelf parts.

> It is indeed spherical frictionless cow-ly possible if we spend a trillion dollars to increase ORNL's annual Pu production capacity so that it doesn't take 200 years to make 600kg of Pu-238.

Oh come on, we used to make so much more of it.

I see estimates that it costs 4 million dollars per pound, plus some scaling costs?

A trillion dollars is not even close to "spherical frictionless cow" when the benchmark is "humanity's current technological capabilities", and a few billion is basically nothing at that scale.

> When someone demonstrates a complex device (let's set aside power generation how about a valve? Or a capacitor?) that can last a century in space I'll agree that it is actually possible.

Is a bunch of stuff lasting 50 years not good evidence? What is your threshold for "demonstrate", do we have to wait 200 years before you can be convinced?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com