Direct Current - An Energy.gov Podcast

50 years after Apollo 11 made history, NASA is getting ready to send astronauts back to the Moon, then on to Mars. We're going to need a power supply that can keep humans alive in space for years at a time. Could a miniature nuclear reactor be the answer?

One of the most ubiquitous items in the world is an item you can probably see from wherever you’re listening… the light bulb. The story of how the light bulb came to light is a fascinating one that we think even a child could understand.

From the real science behind the Upside Down in Netflix's "Stranger Things" to the mysterious death of a U.S. president, Direct Current is pulling back the curtain on some of our deepest, darkest #EnergySecrets.

Energy is 40 and we're celebrating with a look back at four decades of #ScienceForThePeople. We talk to the Department's longest-serving employee (53 years!), revisit the agency's origins, and look to the future with the help of our official historians.

Earth, the cosmos, everything we can see with our eyes and our instruments is made up of normal matter. But all that doesn’t add up to a whole lot. It's just 15% of the mass of the universe.

The rest is an unknown, invisible… something…

Solar power is booming in the U.S. So what happens when the sun disappears during the total solar eclipse on August 21, 2017? We talk to the energy experts.

And now, for something completely different… Take a drive with Direct Current as we mash up three slightly off-kilter energy stories. It might get weird, but it won’t be boring. It’s Hyper Drive Time!

The Department of Energy’s National Labs are the crown jewels of science in America. But their work is so diverse that it’s hard to cover all 17 of them in one podcast episode. So naturally, Direct Current took on that challenge.

The conclusion to our two part series on the Manhattan Project -- an unprecedented, U.S. government effort to beat Nazi Germany in the race to construct a nuclear weapon, the dawn of the atomic age, and how that legacy is being preserved.

Ruth Huddleston was 18 when she took a job at a secret Army facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, during World War II. It was so highly classified that no one could even tell her what she was working on. We have her story.