Scientists have produced a powder of plutonium-238 for the first time in nearly 30 years in the United States, a milestone that they say sets the country on a path toward powering NASA's deep-space ...

Voyages into space are among the most iconic endeavors of the 20th and 21st centuries. Spacecraft that have ventured out to this “final frontier” have relayed stunning images and enlightening ...

The Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee has begun producing plutonium-238, but full-scale production of the spacecraft fuel isn't expected until 2023 at the earliest.

A shortage of the particular type of plutonium needed to power deep space probes may stall planned NASA space exploration. Some scientists insist that the U. S. must urgently restart production of ...

The US government says a new robot is poised to help it create a reliable, long-term supply chain of plutonium-238, a radioactive material NASA requires to explore deep space. NASA uses Pu-238 to ...

Science, New Series, Vol. 158, No. 3802 (Nov. 10, 1967), pp. 769-771 (3 pages) The stratospheric inventory of the plutonium-238 resulting from the disintegration of a nuclear auxiliary power generator ...

Radioactive materials have enormous potential as a source of energy, but some isotopes are available in such small quantities that their use as an energy source is limited. In the 1950s, scientists at ...

After a 27-year gap, the U.S. Department of Energy has resumed producing plutonium-238, the radioactive fuel that powers NASA’s Curiosity rover on Mars and the New Horizons mission to Pluto and beyond ...

NASA is giving scientists more choices for how to power their future spacecraft to explore the Solar System. Researchers proposing spacecraft ideas for NASA’s Discovery program — an initiative to ...

I recall a Poul Anderson science fiction novel with teleportation being one of its’ premises and one of the plot points was the main station was on the Moon because you could teleport millions of tons ...

WASHINGTON — Ever since 2013, when NASA shelved development of a new plutonium battery four times more efficient than those used today, the agency has been forced to come up with creative solutions ...

NASA's Cassini probe at Saturn will be destroyed on September 15. The mission is ending to prevent losing control of the robot and contaminating watery moons that might harbor alien life. A rare and ...