One of the main obstacles for sending men to Mars remains the journey time which exposes scientists to the risk of damage to the survival systems. However, for NASA, travel time could be reduced with a more efficient propulsion system than the one currently in use: nuclear propulsion.
Under the impetus of Donald Trump who wants NASA to send men as quickly as possible to the red planet, the American space agency has therefore relaunched its work on nuclear propulsion. The goal is to send humans to the Moon by 2024 as part of the Artemis program, the latter will only be a stage for the conquest of Mars.
Nuclear propulsion offers various advantages for NASA: exceptional power, displacement speed twice as fast as conventional reactors, but also a much smaller power source and offering a much higher efficiency.
The fact remains that these reactors are particularly complex to operate and just as dangerous in the event of a problem. The company BWX Technologies, which specializes in nuclear energy, won a $ 19 million contract over 3 years to develop a fuel and a nuclear reactor for NASA.
For safety reasons, nuclear propulsion would not be used for take-off, but would only be activated once in orbit.