NASA’s push for a new nuclear rocket engine is not just another upgrade to the hardware we strap to the bottom of spacecraft. It is an attempt to rewrite the basic rules of how far, how fast, and how ...

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 ...

General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems (GA-EMS) just hit a massive milestone that could alter the future of space exploration. The company has successfully trialed a nuclear fuel that could one day ...

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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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

Viewed from orbit, Jackass Flats — situated in southern Nevada about 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas — could easily be confused for Mars. The alluvial basin is full of tan and gray regolith, hued ...

Getting to Mars takes a really long time, about 9 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 very ...

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 ...