Nuclear Technology in Space

NASA, US Navy and Air Force have conducted over 27 space missions utilising radioistope power systems and radioisotope heater units in partnership with the Department of Energy.

Mission	Year	Agency	Regions
Transit 4a	1961	Navy	Earth- Navy Navigation Satelitte
Transit 4B	1961	Navy	Earth – Navigation Satelitte
Transit 5-BN-1	1963	Navy	Earth – Navigation Satelitte
Transit 5-BN-2	1963	Navy	Earth – Navigation Satelitte
Nimbus III	1969	NASA	Earth – Weather Satelitte
Apollo 11	1969	NASA	Moon Surface
Apollo 12	1969	NASA	Moon Surface
Apollo 14	1971	NASA	Moon Surface
Apollo 15	1971	NASA	Moon Surface
Pioneer 10	1971	NASA	Jupiter
Apollo 16	1972	NASA	Moon Surface
Triad-01-1X	1972	Navy	Earth – Navigation Satelitte
Apollo 17	1972	NASA	Moon Surface
Pioneer 11	1973	NASA	Jupiter, Saturn
Viking 1	1975	NASA	Mars Surface
Viking 2	1975	NASA	Mars Surface
Lincoln Experimental Satelitte 8	1976	Air Force	Earth – Communications Satellite
Lincoln Experimental Satelitte 9	1976	Air Force	Earth – Communications Satellite
Voyager 2	1977	NASA	Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune. Interstellar Space
Voyager 1	1977	NASA	Jupiter, Saturn, Interstellar Space
Galileo	1989	NASA	Venus, Asteroid Belt, Jupiter
Ulysses	1990	NASA	Jupiter, Sun, Comets
Pathfinder-Sojourner	1996	NASA	Mars Surface
Cassini-Huygens	1997	NASA	Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, Titan
Pluto New Horizons	2006	NASA	Jupiter, Pluto, Kuiper Belt
Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity	2011	NASA	Mars Surface

 

Quotes

“There is nothing more costly than nuclear power. Nuclear plant promotion is irresponsible at a time when no assurance exists about the disposal of radioactive wastes.  Japan should achieve zero nuclear plants and aim for a more sustainable society.”

 Junichiro Koizumi  
Former Japanese Prime Minister
28th May 2011

“The unfortunate truth is we are likely to see much more disasters. The world has witnessed an unnerving history of nuclear accidents.”

Ban Ki-moon
U.N Secretary-General
In Kiev 20th April 2011, marking the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl Disaster

 

“The nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl, even more than my launch of perestroika, was perhaps the real cause of the collapse of the Soviet Union five years later. Indeed, the Chernobyl catastrophe was an historic turning point: there was the era before the disaster, and there is the very different era that has followed.

The price of the Chernobyl catastrophe was overwhelming, not only in human terms, but also economically. Even today, the legacy of Chernobyl affects the economies of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus.”

Mikhail Gorbachev
Former Soviet Union President 2006

This stands to be the mistake of a generation. After the tremendous lead Britain has given the world by advancing legally binding emissions targets in its Climate Bill, it would be a ghastly mistake for the government to commit us to a nuclear energy policy with astronomical costs and dangers of nuclear contamination for generations to come.

Ken Livingstone
Former Mayor of London
Speaking on the UK’s plans to build a new generation of nuclear power stations in 2008. 

“If nuclear power plants are safe, let the commercial insurance industry insure them. Until these most expert judges of risk are willing to gamble with their money, I’m not willing to gamble with the health and safety of my family.”

Donna Reed
Hollywood Actress

“For 50 years, nuclear power stations have produced three products which only a lunatic could want: bomb-explosive plutonium, lethal radioactive waste and electricity so dear it has to be heavily subsidised. They leave to future generations the task, and most of the cost, of making safe sites that have been polluted half-way to eternity.”
James Buchan
British Novelist

“There are many different kinds of radioactive waste and each has its own half-life so, just to be on the safe side and to simplify matters, I base my calculations on the worst one and that’s plutonium. Perhaps most ridiculous of all is the suggestion that we ‘keep’ our radioactive garbage for the use of our descendants. This ‘solution’, I think, requires an immediate poll of the next 20,000 generations.”

David R. Brower
Founder, Friends of the Earth

Nuclear Waste falling from the Skies

When we talking about Nuclear Waste, the sort of places you’d imagine it turning up are either at sea or on a landfill site, but many are oblivious to the toxic radioactive hazards circling above our heads daily, in the form of ageing radioisotope-thermonuclear generators – a legacy of military and commercial space ventures dating as far back as the early 1960’s.