I’m involved in the development of the free piston Stirling engines for space power production. Ideally, we would like to replace the current solid-state thermo

I’m involved in the development of the free piston Stirling engines for space power production. Ideally, we would like to replace the current solid-state thermoelectric energy conversion system used on the MMRTG and its precursors with a piston engine energy conversion device. This has the potential to increase the conversion efficiency from 6% to 25-40%. This would allow us to use less plutonium 238 so we could either produce more electricity or use less plutonium and do more deep space missions, since the plutonium is in limited supply. I’m also involved with the much more preliminary work into a fission power for nuclear electric propulsion, which is a much more difficult problem. I could speak a lot about this stuff. If anyone really wants to talk, email is in my profile.