Dear DPS Colleagues,
You may be aware that NASA is facing a serious shortfall in the supply of Plutonium-238 (Pu-238), the isotope used in electrical power systems for many planetary robotic missions. This is an issue that directly affects future missions, and which the DPS Committee has targeted as a critical topic for advocacy efforts by the DPS Federal Relations Subcommittee (FRS). Last year, Congress rejected the Department of Energy's (DoE's) $30M budget request to restart domestic production of Pu-238. This year, the administration's FY11 budget request contains $15M each for DoE and NASA to jointly pursue and begin the Pu-238 restart process.
The success of this restart effort is not guaranteed, and so the DPS Committee is calling for the membership to get directly involved to advocate for this important budget item. We are asking that all DPS members contact their Congressional representative and senators to ask them to support the joint DoE+NASA budget proposal to restart domestic Pu-238 production.
A template of a potential letter to send to your representative and senators is appended below. You could cut and paste the body of this letter directly onto your own letterhead, or of course simply use the text below as a guide for your own more personalized letter. Mailing a hardcopy of a letter has the greatest impact in Congressional offices. Sending your letters by fax or email or making a phone call are also fine ways to communicate with members of Congress and their staffs, though we have been told by staff that those methods have less impact than hardcopy letters.
If you don't know them, you can easily find the names, mailing addresses, phone/fax numbers, and email addresses of your Congressional representatives online using the AAS's "zip to it" interface at http://aas.org/policy/aas.bios.html or using other resources like Vote Smart, at http://www.votesmart.org/.
It is vitally important that members of Congress know how critical this issue is to the future of NASA's space exploration program, and that they know that the issue affects constituents in their own districts and states. If you are involved with or proposing involvement with a mission that depends on Pu-238 in any form, your letter will be even stronger with a statement describing the direct impact of that mission in your rep's district. PLEASE make the effort to communicate directly with Congress about this important issue. The DPS Committee will be on Capitol Hill in mid-May to advocate for our case directly to several of the key players involved with DoE and NASA budget authorizations and appropriations. It would be extremely helpful to the Committee if, when we get to these Congressional offices, they were to say, "oh yeah, I received a bunch of letters about this recently!"
For more information and details, please ping DPS Chair Candy Hansen (Candice.J.Hansen@jpl.nasa.gov) or DPS Federal Relations Subcommittee Chair Jim Bell (jfb8@cornell.edu).
Thanks!
-Jim Bell, DPS/FRS Chair
Ralph McNutt, lead author of the 2009 NRC report on Radioisotope Power Systems (http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=12653) suggested some improved wording for the template letter to Congress about production plutonium. He also pointed out an error in the date of cessation of Pu production given in the original mailing. Here's the slightly modified template incorporating those changes:
Replace items in [brackets] with your relevant info
[Your Letterhead]
[Date]
[Honorable Senator/Representative XYZ]
[House or Senate Office Building]
[Washington, DC zip code]
Re: Please Support DoE/NASA Restart of Pu-238 for Space Exploration Missions
Dear [Representative/Senator],
I am writing to urge you to fully support the Department of Energy (DoE) and NASA's plans to restart the production of Plutonium-238 (Pu-238), the isotope used as a source of electrical power for many of NASA's robotic space exploration missions.
Pu-238 is not a viable material for nuclear weapons and has not been produced in the U.S. since the late 1980s. It has been used to power many successful space missions, like the Voyager probes to the outer solar system, the Viking and Mars Science Laboratory missions to Mars, and the Cassini mission to Saturn--missions that could not have been done with solar power alone. However, many new NASA missions to explore the solar system cannot proceed without additional Pu-238: there are no other viable substitute isotopes. Indeed, restarting production as soon as possible is essential, because there is no current U.S. capability to produce this valuable resource, and the world's supply is rapidly declining. At best, there is only enough left to power one more spacecraft to the outer solar system, and then the supply runs out. It will require five years or more from the time production restarts to produce enough Pu-238 to support a new mission, so action on this issue is required now.
The administration's FY2011 budget request includes $15M each for DoE and NASA to share the costs of re-establishing domestic Pu-238 production. I urge you to work to ensure that these DoE and NASA allocations remain in the final budget authorization and appropriation. The future of American space exploration is at stake!
As a constituent of yours and as a professional astronomer and member of the American Astronomical Society's Division for Planetary Sciences, please do not hesitate to contact me if I can provide you or your staff any information on this issue as you consider this request.
Thank you for supporting space exploration and the scientific endeavors that it enables!
Sincerely,
[Your signature and contact information]
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