And modern spacecraft need more power than an RTG of reasonable size can provide.
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But these generators convert heat to electricity at roughly 7.5 percent efficiency. RTGs, which rely on the heat produced when nonfissile plutonium-238 decays, have demonstrated excellent longevity-both Voyager probes use such generators and remain operational nearly 45 years after their launch, for example. Photovoltaic cells, fuel cells, or radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs) have provided power to spacecraft. The space agency has significant energy needs for deep-space travel, including probes and crewed missions to the moon and Mars. Consequently, governments, universities, and companies have long looked to fusion to remedy these ills.Īmong those interested parties is NASA. Fission waste by-products need to be disposed of safely, and they remain radioactive for thousands of years. Devastating accidents, like the one at Fukushima in Japan, can leave areas uninhabitable.
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The enriched uranium fuel they use must be kept secure. Yet these fission plants, for all their value, have considerable downsides. Fission in uranium was discovered in 1938, in Germany, and it was only four years until the first nuclear “pile” was constructed in Chicago, in 1942.Ĥ40 fission reactors operating worldwide, which together can generate about 400 gigawatts of power with zero carbon emissions. The extraction of energy from nuclear fission, by contrast, happened relatively quickly. But the prospect of meeting our energy needs this way remains elusive. And scientists and engineers have continued to study the sun’s fusion process in hopes of one day using nuclear fusion to generate heat or electricity.
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It took researchers many years to unravel the secrets by which lighter elements are smashed together into heavier ones inside stars, releasing energy in the process. Physicists first suspected more than a century ago that the fusing of hydrogen into helium powers the sun.