Present-day spaceships, no matter if they're meant to carry people or not, are powered either by solar energy or chemical fuel, or a combination of the two. But if we are to expand humankind's ...

James is a published author with multiple pop-history and science books to his name. He specializes in history, space, strange science, and anything out of the ordinary.View full profile James is a ...

This relatively long transit time is a result of the use of traditional chemical rocket fuel. An alternative technology to the chemically propelled rockets the agency develops now is called nuclear ...

The first humans to Mars might someday ride a rocket propelled by a nuclear reactor to their destination. But before that can happen, nuclear thermal propulsion (NTP) technologies still have quite a ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems (GA-EMS) just hit a massive milestone that could alter the future of space exploration.

Space rockets may soon use nuclear-powered engines based on nuclear thermal propulsion, or NTP technology. While no nuclear engine will fly this year, the field is approaching a major milestone, with ...

NASA plans to send crewed missions to Mars over the next decade—but the 140 million-mile (225 million-kilometer) journey to the red planet could take several months to years round trip. This ...

There have been full scale nuclear thermal rocket engines built and tested on the ground since the 1960s. The US had the NERVA project. The attraction is that the ISP would be up to triple the ISP of ...

NASA plans to send crewed missions to Mars over the next decade — but the 140 million-mile (225 million-kilometer) journey to the red planet could take several months to years round trip. This ...

This study will identify primary technical and programmatic challenges, merits, and risks for developing and demonstrating space nuclear propulsion technologies of interest to future exploration ...

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 ...

Lockheed Martin [NYSE: LMT] has won a contract from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to develop and demonstrate a nuclear-powered spacecraft under a project called Demonstration ...