I’ve grown up with rockets that burn chemical fuel, but NASA’s next big leap in propulsion could make those engines look as dated as steam trains. By turning to nuclear power in space, the agency is ...

Nuclear thermal propulsion (NTP) has stood as a promising potential alternative propulsion technology for decades. Chemical rockets have begun to reach their theoretical maximum efficiency, and their ...

A new report from two MIT researchers attempts to dig into the specifics of a shadowy Russian weapons program they call ...

Getting to Mars takes a really long time, about nine months using today's rocket technology. This is because regular rocket engines burn fuel and oxygen together (like a car engine), but they're not ...

The USA's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has finalised an agreement with Lockheed Martin to begin work on the fabrication and design of an experimental nuclear thermal rocket and its engine ...

A new kind of space engine could change how we explore the solar system, and it's powered by the same force that lights up the stars. A British startup called Pulsar Fusion is working on a nuclear ...

Get ready because the future of traveling to other planets just got a massive upgrade. Pulsar Fusion, a U.K.-based aerospace company, is developing a compact fusion engine called the Dual Direct ...

Jim Bickford is leading the Thin Film Isotope Nuclear Engine Rocket (TFINER) project to develop a system for propelling a craft through space faster and farther than ever before. This technology has ...

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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 ...

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

Click to open image viewer. Shown here is a one-eighth scale model of the NERVA (Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Application) nuclear rocket test engine on a movable stand equipped with rails.