Member-only story
The Nuclear Propulsion Engine Is Almost Here!
And it could prove NASA’s most ambitious project yet
In an attempt to facilitate mankind’s exploration of the Solar System, NASA has partnered with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to finally bring to life one of our most ambitious and controversial engineering projects: the creation of a nuclear rocket engine. This thermal beast would propel us from Earth to Mars faster than ever before, creating new speed records in outer space.
A shortened transit time would reduce the number of supplies needed and would mitigate travel strain and danger for the onboard crew. When traveling through space, astronauts face the harmful effects of radiation and decreased bone and muscle density, as well as unique psychological stressors. A longer transit time also increases the number of provisions required to keep the passengers alive.
Nuclear thermal engines are able to reduce this transit time — and increase the payload capacity — because they are 3 to 5 times more efficient than standard chemical rockets and offer 10,000 times greater thrust-to-weight ratios than electric propulsion. Nuclear thermal engines have a very high specific impulse, a measurement of how efficiently fuel is converted to thrust, typically measured in seconds of acceleration. Traditional chemical…
