On oldie but a goodie–
Nuclear Propulsion In Space, NERVA (1968)
https://youtu.be/b18HtG0DOCM
–imagine how advanced this type of technology would have developed over the past 50 years. (I don’t want to pay for the research 2-3X’s over again, like we did with the “bat-wing” stealth aircraft.)

It turns out that the poles of Earth’s moon are almost 90 degrees from the direction to the sun (about 89 degrees), unlike the Earth, where they are about 67 degrees. Thus, the Moon’s “arctic circle” is about 1 degree, and solar arrays at some places near the poles can provide power around 90% of the time. Nicely convenient.

For other locations on the Moon, some form of power storage, RTG’s, or other power generators would be necessary for the long nights.

Gealon wrote: “As for RTG’s, I think Calvin you mean anti-nuke Cowards.”

Not necessarily cowards. I watched, at my university, as a bunch of the anti-nuke crowd protested — with their children in tow — as they bravely stood in a parking lot right above the school’s nuclear reactor. They were willing to risk their own and their children’s health and lives in order to protest what they believed to be an evil, dangerous, and risky reactor. These were truly brave (or stupid) people, unless they understood just how safe the reactor actually was.

As for RTG’s, I think Calvin you mean anti-nuke Cowards. I am well versed in the construction of these power supplies and I can tell you there is very little to no chance of a leak of their fuel. They are designed very heartily (Which adds to their weight) and are intended to survive the destruction of the launch vehicle and re-entry into the atmosphere as well as the “landing.” Speaking specifically for Juno, that probe is only capable of function in the Jovian system because it uses Very large panels all made of the most expensive solar cells there are (But who cares about cost when you have a “Green” spacecraft.) While they might be able to pull solar off for Jupiter, you can’t for anything further out. The solar arrays at that point become so large and unwieldy that launch costs skyrocket and even if launched, the spacecraft would be too heavy to effectively maneuver it’s self.

Unfortunate it is true that we no longer have a stockpile of Plutonium fuel to build more RTG’s. I do remember Rob posting an article a few months back that we were finally producing fuel again, but haven’t heard anything else after that. What we really need to do though is stop playing around with these low power options. We need to develop a space based reactor that can make true interplanetary travel a possibility. We have several propulsion concepts ready to go, MPD thrusters and VASIMIR engines just to name two, but they are all held back by lack of a power supply. We had a prototype nuclear thermal propulsion system in testing once (Nerva), but once again as with everything nuclear it seems, it was abandoned.

Anyway, not going to get into the continuingly depressing state of nuclear propulsion and power technologies, just going to get back on point, there is no reason to stop transmitting before you reach the surface… Unless the Phobosians have commanded you to.

The main engineering considerations that I’m aware of are power to weight ratios (solar is better than RTG at our distance from the Sun, but of course solar gets worse as it gets farther away), and solar availability (on a planet or moon solar will be available only 1/2 the time). Note that even at Jupiter’s distance from the Sun, NASA seems to think solar beats RTGs for spacebound probes (like Juno).

Excuse my ignorance– Rosetta is powered exclusively by solar-panels, is that correct?
>>Just as a civilian, I really like the whole “radioisotope thermoelectric generator” ‘thing.

I realize there are legitimate engineering factors that go into choosing a power source, just wondering aloud why we don’t go for the RTG’s “all-the-time?” (or at least a combination of RTG’s & solar-panels, especially in this instance.)

Total tangent— The Space Show on 6-28-16 was very interesting. Looking doubly forward to reading the CNAS Policy paper!