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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

Share on Facebook (opens in a new window) Share on X (opens in a new window) Share on Reddit (opens in a new window) Share on Hacker News (opens in a new window) Share on Flipboard (opens in a new ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

A U.K. space tech company has revealed a secret project that could change how humans travel between planets. After ten years of quiet research, Pulsar Fusion has unveiled a nuclear fusion-powered ...