NASA’s push for a new nuclear rocket engine is not just another upgrade to the hardware we strap to the bottom of spacecraft. It is an attempt to rewrite the basic rules of how far, how fast, and how ...

General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems (GA-EMS) just hit a massive milestone that could alter the future of space exploration. The company has successfully trialed a nuclear fuel that could one day ...

As the cloud cleared, Air Force bombers dropped in to gather air samples. Researchers hoped that the radioactive fallout ...

MIT master’s student Taylor Hampson is advancing research into nuclear thermal propulsion (NTP), thanks ...

Scientists have developed a new form of nuclear propulsion that they claim could slash mission times to Mars and enable voyages to the farthest reaches of the solar system. A team from Ohio State ...

That something is nuclear propulsion. Essentially, a nuclear rocket engine is a reactor that has hydrogen running through it as a propellant, which is heated to an astonishing 3,000 K (2,727 °C, 4,940 ...

The key component of Russia’s Burevestnik cruise missile is its engine — for the first time in the world, a compact nuclear ‘heart’ has been created. How can similar technologies be applied in the ...

Forward-looking: Scientists have long envisioned nuclear electric propulsion as a transformative technology for unlocking the potential of solar system exploration. Now, two companies making steady ...

The best, in fact, the only, candidate for this is the Nuclear Thermal Propulsion (NTP) system or nuclear rocket. First conceived of in 1945, this is a rocket that replaces burning chemical fuel with ...

Introduction -- Rocket engine fundamentals -- Nuclear rocket engine cycles -- Interplanetary mission analysis -- Basic nuclear structure and processes -- Neutron flux energy distribution -- Neutron ...