With Radon it might even be conceivably possible (not sure how hard it is to get and if any restrictions apply because of its radioactivity), and it would work for a few years, because it has a half-life of 3.825 days. In the quantities needed for a gas tube (and as long as it stays in the tube!), I guess it should also be relatively safe, but I'm not an expert. Apparently it produces red light when used in a tube. Oganesson however has a half-life of 0.7 ms, so, aside from how expensive it would be to synthesize enough of it, it's doesn't stay around long enough for any experiments...
pfdietz•1h ago
More specifically, for a given exhaust velocity and grid spacing, the space charge limited thrust density (thrust/area) of an ion engine scales as the square of the mass/charge ratio of the ions. So you really want heavy singly charged ions. This is completely unlike thermal rockets, where you want low molecular weight exhaust gases.