Remember how NASA's Perseverance rover touched down on the Martian surface?
It all cheered us from the confines of planet Earth! Although it sounds impossible,
humans are not that hard from conquering Mars. And DOGE with
Elon Musk has nothing to do with it - it's all about NASA Nuclear Starfighter!
If the space agency or others desire to leave and send astronauts to Mars, they must consider
a technology studied decades ago but never wholly developed: nuclear-powered rockets.
If we want to send humans to Mars, nuclear propulsion is likely central to that journey.
NASA should begin studying nuclear propulsion right now if it hopes to use it in a Mars mission
in 2039. Although NASA does invest some money studying the technology, funding will have to be
ramped up majorly if we're going to hit 2039. The concept of using nuclear reactors for
propulsion comes back from the earliest days of the U.S. space program. In the 1950s and 1960s,
scientists from the Atomic Energy Commission developed a series of nuclear rockets. The program
was conducted in collaboration with NASA and developed working prototypes. But it was canceled
in the early 1970s, after it became clear the missions for which it was required, to travel to
Mars and the moon, we're unlikely to go forward. One of the greatest inventions of the times was
NASA's Starship F-104. Often named "the rocket with a man in it," the F-104 was the first working
aircraft to sustain Mach 2 speed in flight. It suffered from short-range, obsolete avionics,
high landing speed, and, until late 1967, an unreliable engine.
Nonetheless, the Starfighter served the U.S. and several of its allies well. North Vietnam's
pilots never challenged one in combat. Italy's air defense variant, the F-104S,
operated through 2005, a great testimony to Johnson's design and vision.
The technology has had occasional funding in the years since, even though supportive
technologies for space travel have continued to develop. Most notably, in the case of Mars,
scientists and engineers have made amazing strides in robotic technology to explore the Red Planet.
We can do an enormous amount of fantastic science with robots, as we're discovering today!
Getting humans to Mars is another matter. Many factors need to be considered, including how fast
you can get there? How long should you stay on Mars? How fast and how reliably can you get back?
Those questions are all about one thing: minimizing the time from when astronauts
leave Earth to when they return. The journey must be as fast as possible,
but going quickly takes fuel. For even the most basic human travel to Mars,
around a thousand tons of propellant would be required.
That would travel from Earth on many dozens of small rockets that could be used to gas
up a larger, Mars-bound spacecraft. It would be expensive and dangerous. Even with all the
propellants, astronauts would be compelled to stay on Mars for 500 days and waiting for a planetary
alignment that would let them get back to Earth utilizing as little propellant as possible.
By contrast, nuclear power could allow the mission to be completed with less fuel and a shorter time.
Because of the additional thrust provided by nuclear rocket motors,
astronauts could take a shortcut back to Earth by flying around the Sun and Venus.
The mission would also mean a quicker first stay on Mars of only about a month instead of 500 days.
If you desire to go to Mars, nuclear is an intelligent choice.
Scientists right now are working on the version of a nuclear rocket previously tested by the U.S.
It includes shooting hydrogen gas through the core of a specifically designed nuclear reactor.
The hydrogen would heat up the reactor, making the hydrogen expand
out of a nozzle, generating thrust. The design looks promising. The
chemistry seems good, the nuclear physics looks good, the manufacturing
seems to be going in the right direction. The second kind of nuclear rocket would use
the nuclear reactor more conventionally. In this version, the reactor would produce electricity
that could then power another rocket motor, like an "ion thruster" used on various satellites.
The National Academies found each design had enormous challenges that would need to be overcome
before they were ready for humans. For the nuclear rocket working on hydrogen,
materials would have to be developed to tolerate the enormous temperatures inside the reactor
core. The rocket would also need superior hydrogen storage so that its fuel didn't leak.
On the other hand, a nuclear electric system would need giant radiator panels protruding from the
spaceship to help deal with the heat generated by the reactor. It would also require more research
to determine how to integrate the reactor with different thrusters and power systems.
Lancing a nuclear reactor from Earth might make some people nervous.
Still, Ultra Safe Nuclear Corporation is working hard to make it...ultra-safe.
Scientists promise they'll be using conventional rockets to get it up into space.
They'll have safety measures in places just in case the chemical rocket does malfunction.
The nuclear reactor would be shut off throughout its trip off Earth's surface.
Even if the rocket exploded, it wouldn't meltdown. Astronauts would not start the
nuclear rocket system before their Mars-bound spacecraft was a safe distance from Earth.
The reactor would also be shielded to guard the astronauts from its radiation. But the larger
radiation risk originates from space itself. Both the Sun and the Milky Way galaxy put
out intense radiation that can be harmful to anyone outside of Earth's atmosphere. Nuclear
rockets would defend astronauts by keeping the travel time through space as short as possible.
Finally, it remains unclear whether nuclear rockets can get off the ground. Developing
the technology is tremendously expensive, and there are still many obstacles to making it
work. In a statement, NASA declared it would further review the committee's recommendations
and share them with stakeholders. But NASA should at least begin
investing to see whether such rockets could play a role in humanity's first trip to Mars.