![]() ![]() Over the next few years, engineers built and tested more than a dozen reactors of different sizes and power outputs. The key development was miniaturizing the reactors enough to fit on a rocket. The first tests of nuclear rockets started in 1955 with Project Rover at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory. This heats up hydrogen to almost 2,500 degrees Celsius, which is then expelled out the back of the rocket at extremely high velocity, giving the rocket two to three times the propulsion efficiency of a chemical rocket.Īrtist’s illustration of the launch of the Space Launch System, which will eventually be the most powerful rocket ever built. A marble-sized ball of uranium fuel undergoes fission, releasing a tremendous amount of heat. Thanks to good old Newton's third law-for every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction-the rocket receives a thrust in the opposite direction from the expelled gases.Ī nuclear rocket works in a similar way. But they did perform some successful tests of nuclear thermal propulsion and demonstrated that it does work.Ī chemical rocket works by igniting some kind of flammable chemical and then forcing the exhaust gases out a nozzle. This was pioneered by Werner von Braun, who hoped that human missions would be flying to Mars in the 1980s on the wings of nuclear rockets. In 1961, NASA and the Atomic Energy Commision worked together on the idea of nuclear thermal propulsion, or NTP. They definitely speed up the journey, but they're not without their own risks, which is why you haven't seen them. It turns out NASA has been thinking about what comes after chemical rockets for almost 50 years: Nuclear thermal rockets. Then a return mission doubles the need for resources and doubles the radiation load. ![]() Throughout the journey, astronauts will be consuming food, water, air, and be exposed to the long-term radiation of deep space. The problem of course, is the time it takes. This is known as Hohmann transfer, and it's the most efficient way we know how to travel in space using the least amount of propellant and the largest amount of payload. The new elliptical trajectory you're following intersects with Mars after eight months of flight. Then, at the right moment, you'd fire your rocket, raising your orbit from the sun. You would blast off from Earth and go into low Earth orbit. Let's say that you wanted to visit Mars using a chemical rocket. Of course, launching a rocket powered by radioactive material has its own risks, as well. ![]()
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