Breaking News
Are the End Times Upon Us?
What really happens to your bag after you check it in?
New LITHIUM METAL battery DOUBLES energy capacity! Has CHINA beaten us to it AGAIN?
Your Body's Urgently Trying to Tell You Something
Top Tech News
Neuroscientists just found a hidden protein switch in your brain that reverses aging and memory loss
NVIDIA just announced the T5000 robot brain microprocessor that can power TERMINATORS
Two-story family home was 3D-printed in just 18 hours
This Hypersonic Space Plane Will Fly From London to N.Y.C. in an Hour
Magnetic Fields Reshape the Movement of Sound Waves in a Stunning Discovery
There are studies that have shown that there is a peptide that can completely regenerate nerves
HERE COMES THE MOTHERSHIP
Swedish startup unveils Starlink alternative - that Musk can't switch off
Video Games At 30,000 Feet? Starlink's Airline Rollout Is Making It Reality
Grok 4 Vending Machine Win, Stealth Grok 4 coding Leading to Possible AGI with Grok 5
NASA Plans for Particle Bed Nuclear Thermal Flight Demo By 2025
BWX Technologies, Inc. (BWXT) is working with NASA in support of the agency's Nuclear Thermal Propulsion (NTP) Project. BWXT is responsible for initiating conceptual designs of an NTP reactor in hopes of powering a future manned mission to Mars.
The NTP project seeks to dramatically decrease travel time to and from Mars, while increasing payload size due to a lighter-sized aircraft. Compared to its chemical counterpart, a nuclear thermal rocket possesses twice the propulsion efficiency due to its high-thrust engine and ability to accelerate propellant at high speeds. Given NTP's advantages over traditional chemical propulsion systems, NASA estimates the technology will reduce transit to the Red Planet from six months to four.
NASA is testing fuel pellets and other components of the system.
China is starting to operate a pebble bed nuclear for commercial power generation at 210 megawatts of electrical power.
NASA is trying to get to nuclear thermal flight demo within 5 years. If all went well they would get a nuclear thermal mission by 2033.