Nasa) supposed to do if private companies like SpaceX get all the spacefaring glory? One option is to double down on investments in leading-edge advancements that may not pay off for years. Super-fast and manoeuvrable nuclear-powered rocket engines are one such technology. Last month, Nasa, partnering with the US Department of Defense, gave Lockheed Martin nearly $500 million to build and test one by 2027.
Without this collaboration, two things could be in jeopardy: Nasa’s dream of putting boots down in more parts of the solar system and the US’s upper hand in outer-space warfare. For nearly a century, rockets have operated in a fundamentally similar manner: A tank stores fuel that, when ignited, spits out a nozzle at high speed and creates thrust. The problem is, anything you might want to do with a spacecraft, such as manoeuvre towards Mars, requires lots of fuel, and because there are no gas stations in outer space (yet), a craft must carry as much fuel as its operators expect it will need for the duration of its mission.
Nearly half the mass of GOES-U, the 5.5-tonne weather satellite that Nasa plans to launch next year, will be fuel. Last year, Canada’s Telesat announced it would take a big financial hit due to insufficient fuel in a key communication satellite. Scientists have long recognized the need for more efficient alternatives.
In the 1950s, they came up with an explosive one: Use a small nuclear reactor to heat up a propellant, such as liquid hydrogen, to much higher temperatures than what can be achieved in a chemical rocket. Such an engine would be more than twice as efficient as a traditional rocket and much faster—in part because its engines can run non-stop for weeks, accelerating faster and faster. A
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