Nuclear-powered rockets could hold key to faster spaceships

May 27, 2020, 12:07PMAround the Web

An artist’s impression of what a nuclear thermal ship built to take humans to Mars could look like. Photo: NASA

There are a lot of reasons that a faster spaceship is a better one, and nuclear-powered rockets are a way to achieve this, according to an article posted on the Conversation website on May 20.

Nuclear-powered rockets offer many benefits over traditional fuel-burning rockets or modern solar-powered electric rockets, but there have been only eight U.S. space launches carrying nuclear reactors in the past 40 years.

Last year, however, the laws regulating nuclear space flights changed, and work has already begun on this next generation of rockets.


Related Articles