Nuclear-Powered Rockets?

NASA got through the Artemis II mission last week with a few minor “anomalies,” as NASA calls problems, but in 2028 it plans to launch a nuclear-powered rocket to Mars as an initial step to using nuclear-powered rockets in space.

An accident involving a nuclear-powered rocket could be no small anomaly.

The NASA plan was heralded in a section titled “America underway on nuclear power in space” in a NASA announcement on March 24^th headed “NASA Unveils Initiatives to Achieve America’s National Space Policy.”

It said that “after decades of study and in response to the National Space Policy, NASA announced a major step forward in bringing nuclear power and propulsion from the lab to space. NASA will launch the Space Reactor‑1 Freedom, the first nuclear-powered interplanetary spacecraft, to Mars before the end of 2028, demonstrating advanced nuclear electric propulsion in deep space.”

Scientific American followed with an article the same day headlined: “NASA announces a nuclear-powered Mars mission by 2028.” The subhead: “The U.S. space agency will aim to send a nuclear-powered spacecraft to Mars—a first—in a bid to show that nuclear propulsion can be used to send missions into deep space.”

Pursuing use of nuclear propulsion in space has been a NASA aim for many years—indeed, going back to the 1960s.

This was highlighted by NBC News correspondent Tom Costello, who covers space issues, in 2023, going to NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama, where work has been done and remains underway on developing nuclear rockets.

Costello reported: “NASA looks at going to the moon…and to Mars. And to get to Mars, they’re going nuclear….While science and exploration are the driving motivators, there’s also a competitive factor, China. The Chinese government is very secretive, and a lot of their plans involve their military preparations. And so, there’s a reason for us to get there first. And NASA wants to get there faster…So to cut travel time, America is going back to the future.”

“This project was called NERVA,” Costello continued, citing NERVA (which stands for Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Application), “the 1960s a government program that most Americans have never heard of to develop nuclear powered rockets. It turns out they made big progress back in the 60s, running expensive tests.”

In Huntsville, he said, “they’ve got an exact replica to scale of the Saturn V [rocket]…Future astronauts will need that kind of lift. But once they’re in space, they can use a much smaller engine, a nuclear engine, to go all the way to Mars and back…It’s happening now at the Marshall Space Flight Center…This is where they put [together] components of nuclear thermal rockets.”

Things did not go smoothly for NERVA.

“NASA: Lost its NERVA,” was the heading in an article in Ad Astra in 2005 by longtime space journalist Leonard David. He wrote about how, “For NASA, it has been a long time in coming—permission to use the ‘N’ word: for nuclear power in space. In many ways, it has been the political, financial and technological third rail of space exploration—too hot of an issue to handle easily—radioactive to boot.”

He wrote that NERVA’s “success was short-lived. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, U.S. President Richard Nixon nixed NASA and NERVA funding dramatically…Eventually, NERVA lost its funding and the project was scuttled in 1973.”

It’s not just the U.S. that is intending to use nuclear-powered rockets in space.

“Nuclear-powered rockets will win the new space race,” was the headline last year in The Washington Post. The sub-head: “Russia and China are working hard for a nuclear-powered advantage in space. The U.S. must up its game.”

“Space nuclear propulsion and power are not hypotheticals,” said the article. “China is investing heavily in both terrestrial and space-based nuclear technologies, with plans to send a nuclear-powered spacecraft to Mars by 2033. Russia, too, has announced ambitious goals.”

The headline in a 2024 article in the South China Morning Post: “Starship rival: Chinese scientists build prototype engine for nuclear-powered spaceship to Mars.”

Its subhead told of how a “1.5 megawatt-class…fission reactor passes initial ground tests as global race for space. The lithium-cooled system is designed to expand from a container-sized volume into a structure as large as a 20-story building in space.”

The article began by saying a “a collaboration of more than 10 research institutes and universities across China have made significant strides toward interplanetary travel with the development of a nuclear fission technology.”

The Russians are bullish on the speed a nuclear-powered rocket could, they believe, attain. “Mars in 30 days? Russia unveils prototype of plasma engine,” was the headline last year of an article put out by World Nuclear News.

It began: “A laboratory protype of a plasma electric rocket engine based on a magnetic plasma accelerator has been produced by Rosatom scientists, who say it could slash travel time to Mars to one or two months.” (Rosatom is the Russian State Atomic Energy Corporation.)

The Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space was formed in 1992 at a gathering in Washington, D.C. and now has membership throughout the world. It has organized protests at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida to NASA launches of spacecraft using radioisotope thermoelectric generators. Using the heat of plutonium-238, the RTG’s generate electricity to run instruments, not to propel spacecraft.

The largest protest organized by the Global Network involved the Cassini space probe mission to Saturn in 1977 with 73 pounds of plutonium in three RTGs, the largest amount of plutonium ever on a spacecraft.

The most dangerous portion of that mission was when NASA had the Cassini probe perform a “slingshot maneuver,” sending it back towards Earth to use Earth’s gravity to increase its velocity. If, as NASA said in an Environmental Impact Statement for Cassini, there was an “inadvertent reentry” into the Earth’s atmosphere in that maneuver causing it to disintegrate and release its plutonium, an estimated “5 billion billion…of the world population…could receive 99 percent of the radiation exposure.”

NASA insisted at the time that beyond the orbit of Mars, it was necessary to use plutonium-powered RTGs. However, in 2011 NASA launched its Juno space probe to Jupiter which instead of RTGs used three solar arrays to generate onboard electricity. Juno orbited and studied Jupiter, where sunlight is a hundredth of what it is on Earth.

Bruce Gagnon, coordinator of the Global Network, since its formation, said the organization will be opposing the use of nuclear-powered rockets whether by the U.S., China or Russia.

In the U.S., in 2021 a report titled “Space Nuclear Propulsion for Human Mars Exploration” was issued by a committee of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine of the U.S.

The 104-page report also lays out “synergies” in space nuclear activities between the NASA and the U.S. military. It said: “The report stated: “Space nuclear propulsion and power systems have the potential to provide the United States with military advantages…NASA could benefit programmatically by working with a DoD [Department of Defense] program having national security objectives.”’

What might be an “anomaly” involving a nuclear-powered rocket.

“Is using nuclear materials for space travel dangerous, genius, or a little of both?” was the heading of a 2021 article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

With the U.S. setting a goal of “a human mission to Mars,” said the article by Susan D’Agostino, “the words ‘nuclear’ and ‘space’ are again popping up together….Nuclear propulsion systems for space exploration—should they materialize—are expected to offer significant advantages, including the possibility of sending spacecraft farther, in less time, and more efficiently than traditional chemical propulsion systems.”

“But,” the piece went on, “extreme physical conditions on the launchpad, in space, and during reentry raise questions about risk-mitigation measures, especially when nuclear materials are present. To realize the goal of nuclear-propelled, human mission to Mars, scientists must overcome significant challenges that include—but go beyond—the technical. That is, any discussion about such an uncommon journey must also consider relevant medical, environmental, economic, political, and ethical questions.”

The piece said that “attaching what amounts to a nuclear reactor to a human-occupied spaceship is not without risks.”

An article in 2023 by Bob McDonald of the Canadian Broadcasting System was headed: “Nuclear powered rockets could take us to Mars, but will the public accept them?”

“Nuclear rockets are not a new idea,” it noted. “Now, with the prospect of sending humans to Mars in the 2030s, the idea is being revived in an effort to shorten the roughly seven months it takes a conventional rocket to get to Mars. This might be a boon for future astronauts who face a seven-month, one-way journey using current technology.”

“The idea is to use a small fission reactor to heat up a liquid fuel to very high temperatures, turning it into a hot gas that would shoot out a rocket nozzle at high velocity, providing thrust,” it continued.

“The design of a nuclear rocket means they typically would produce less thrust than a chemical rocket, but nuclear engines could run continuously for weeks, constantly accelerating, ultimately reaching higher velocities in a tortoise-and-hare kind of way. Nuclear propulsion is expected to be twice as fuel-efficient as chemical rockets, largely because they can heat the gas they use for thrust to a higher temperature than chemical combustion, and hotter gas means more energy.”

“A quicker trip to Mars provides huge benefits. Astronauts would be exposed to less cosmic radiation during the journey. The psychological pressures of living in a confined space far from home would be reduced. Supplies and a rescue mission could be delivered more quickly. These rockets could also open up the outer solar system so trips to Jupiter and its large family of icy moons could eventually be within reach,” the piece went on.

“While the technology of nuclear propulsion is certainly feasible, it may not be readily embraced by the public. The accidents at Chernobyl, Three Mile Island and Fukushima have left many people skeptical about nuclear safety. And there will be risk,” said the piece.

“Technicians at the NASA Lewis Research Center in 1964 were testing a nozzle design for a nuclear thermal rocket. A nuclear rocket wouldn’t be used to launch a spacecraft from the Earth’s surface — it would be designed to run in space only. It would have to launch into orbit on a large chemical rocket — so the public would have to accept the risk of launching a nuclear reactor on a standard rocket filled with explosive fuel.”

“And rockets have and will malfunction catastrophically, in what with black humor rocket scientists sometimes call RUD—’rapid unscheduled disassembly.’”

“No one wants to see nuclear debris raining down on the Florida coast or Disneyland, and that’s not the only possible scenario. An accident in orbit could potentially drop radioactive material into the atmosphere. These safety concerns need to be addressed before any nuclear rocket leaves the ground,” said the article.

Gagnon, of the Global Network, cites in the past NASA “postponing a test of a nuclear-powered spacecraft just above the Earth. They weren’t allowed to test it on Earth because of its potential for spreading contamination widely, so they intended to test it over our heads. There were concerns about the technology failing, and it falling, burning up on re-entry. At the present time there is no schedule to do those tests, but I’m sure they’re pushing ahead to do them as quickly as possible.”

“Besides the problem of an accident,” said Gagnon, “the production process for nuclear space devices leads to radioactive contamination in the laboratories where they takes place and in air and water.”

In 2015, Gagnon said, “The nuclear industry views space as a new market for their deadly product. Nuclear generators on space missions, nuclear-powered mining colonies on Mars, and even nuclear reactors on rockets to Mars are being sought. Thus, there are many opportunities for things to go wrong.”

If things go wrong, these “anomalies” could be major.

NASA’s March 24 announcement also said: “When SR-1 Freedom reaches Mars, it will deploy the Skyfall payload of Ingenuity‑class helicopters to continue exploring the Red Planet. SR-1 Freedom will establish flight-heritage nuclear hardware, set regulatory and launch precedents, and activate the industrial base for future fission power systems across propulsion, surface, and long‑duration missions. NASA and its U.S. Department of Energy partner will unlock the capabilities required for sustained exploration beyond the Moon and eventual journeys to Mars and the outer solar system.”

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