Angry Astronaut and Nextbigfuture commenter are making the case that SpaceX and Elon Musk must switch to nuclear thermal rockets to colonize Mars. I will ...

NASA has achieved a critical milestone in space exploration with the successful testing of advanced nuclear thermal propulsion (NTP) reactor fuel at its Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC). This ...

General Atomic's new nuclear fuel was subjected to the maximum heat of a reactor for 20 minutes in the latest tests.

An alternative technology to the chemically propelled rockets the agency develops now is called nuclear thermal propulsion, which uses nuclear fission and could one day power a rocket that makes ...

Nuclear propulsion could be the future of space travel and NASA and General Atomics just brought us one step closer.

NASA is working on a groundbreaking nuclear electric propulsion system that could dramatically speed up trips to Mars. The ...

General Atomics has completed several key tests for nuclear thermal propulsion (NTP) reactor technology at NASA’s MSFC.

The demonstration rocket’s engine reactor remains in ... Osorio says that “qualifying an operational nuclear thermal propulsion engine for space transportation will require a ground-test ...

NASA said nuclear thermal rockets can be three or more times more efficient than conventional chemical propulsion and would reduce transit time, essential for an eventual mission to Mars.

As the heated propellant expands, it’s ultimately exhausted out of a nozzle in much the same way as in a traditional rocket. It’s also similar to the concept of nuclear thermal propulsion ...

Rather than cram the whole system into an existing rocket, this would allow ... and human exploration using nuclear electric propulsion and nuclear thermal propulsion.

Scientists have thought about attaching nuclear, thermal-rocket engines to ammonia-heavy asteroids and redirecting the asteroids so that they crash into Mars and release the meteor's ammonia and ...