  In the last two and a half decades ion storage rings have proven to be
powerful tools for precision experiments with unstable nuclides in realm of
nuclear structure and astrophysics. There are presently three storage ring
facilities in the world at which experiments with stored radioactive ions are
possible. These are the ESR in GSI, Darmstadt/Germany, the CSRe in IMP,
Lanzhou/China, and the R3 storage ring in RIKEN, Saitama/Japan. In this work,
an introduction to the facilities is given. Selected characteristic
experimental results and their impact in nuclear physics and astrophysics are
presented. Planned technical developments and the envisioned future experiments
are outlined.
