Los Alamos Lab Demonstrates A Reactor For Space Travel

The new prototype is the first nuclear reactor for space built in the U.S. since 1965. For spacecraft, you really can’t beat the efficiency and simplicity of a nuclear power supply. From the Pioneer probes to the Mars rover Curiosity, a nuclear battery allows a slow drip of electricity where solar power would be impractical or impossible, and fuel cells or other batteries would drain. But radioisotope thermoelectric generators, as these are called, give a spacecraft about a household ligh...