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  A book about nuclear physics I read said that plutonium-238 (which has a
half-life of a few hundred or thousand years, and makes only alpha rays and
not gamma rays), is used in satellites etc as a handy steady power source (the
heat from its steady radioactive decay is picked off by a very sensitive
lead-tellurium thermocouple; the alpha rays don't get far by themselves).
  It also said to my surprise that a fifth of a gram of it is used thus as a
power source in some heart pacemakers - and also - it said that 750 grams (one
and a half pounds) of it has been used directly to heat deep sea diving suits!
Please have any techdiver readers heard of this?, or must I assume that the
author of that book was not as much with it in diving as he was in nuclear
physics. And however much would 750 grams of it cost!?!?!?
  I guess very many people would act nervous at diving with a pound and a half
of `plute' stuck into their drysuit! Even though Pu-238 can't go critical and
is <not> the same stuff as Pu-239 (atom bomb and reactor fuel).

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