Danny Jones

And then the radiation must be a huge problem.

What is this, Steve?

Oh, this is an article about it.

History and mysteries surround NASA's 2028 nuclear Mars mission, fission-powered space flight.

A 60-year dream would supercharge the outer solar system exploration.

So is this going to like literally be like a nuclear detonation when it launches or –

Okay, nearly all of today's space missions rely on chemical rockets, which require vast quantities of heavy fuel and are comparatively slow.

Instead, nuclear electric propulsion, NEP, relies on fission to generate heat, which gets converted to electricity via a gas turbine.

This power in turn ionizes a gas propellant into a plasma that shoots continuously out of the thrusters.

Wow.

How far will the rocket go?

And the satellite will have a separate propulsion system that will shoot it into Mars.

And for the Mars mission, won't you have to refuel in, like, orbit or something?

Right.

How much testing and trial and error and how much experimentation is being done or floated around on how to logistically get people there safe?

Like, do they, do you know if they know, like, will you go to sleep for the six months that you're traveling there and go into like a hibernation or like how much of that stuff has actually been thought about?

Right.

And so in 2033, I believe, I read something that said Earth is going to be the closest it's ever been to Mars in like thousands of years.

Yeah.

So that would be the optimal window, 2033.