This text initially appeared on Universe Right now.
Attending to Mars takes a extremely very long time, about 9 months utilizing at the moment’s rocket know-how. It is because common rocket engines burn gasoline and oxygen collectively (like a automotive engine), however they’re not very environment friendly. The elemental drawback is that spacecraft should carry each gasoline and oxidizer since there’s no air in area to assist combustion. This creates a vicious circle: The extra gasoline you carry to go sooner, the heavier your spacecraft turns into, requiring much more gasoline to speed up that additional weight. To go sooner, you’d want huge quantities of gasoline, making the rockets extremely costly and heavy. Present chemical propulsion techniques are nearly at their theoretical limits, with little room for enchancment in effectivity.
While NASA funding has been slashed by the Trump administration with no allocation for nuclear thermal propulsion and/or nuclear electrical propulsion, scientists on the European House Company (ESA) have been learning nuclear propulsion. Right here’s the way it works: As a substitute of burning gasoline with oxygen, a nuclear reactor heats up a propellant like hydrogen. The super-heated propellant then shoots out of the rocket nozzle, pushing the spacecraft ahead. This technique is far more environment friendly than chemical rockets.
Revisiting Nuclear Rockets for Mars
Nuclear rockets provide a number of key benefits, akin to slicing Mars journey instances in half—from 9 months to about 4 to five months. The effectivity features come from the truth that nuclear reactors produce way more power per unit of gasoline than chemical reactions. Surprisingly, astronauts would really obtain much less dangerous radiation on shorter journeys, regardless that the engine itself produces radiation. This occurs as a result of area vacationers are continuously bombarded by cosmic radiation throughout their journey, and slicing journey time in half considerably reduces their complete publicity. These engines work finest for giant spacecraft that want to hurry up and decelerate dramatically, good for Moon and Mars missions the place speedy velocity modifications of at the least 25,000 km/h are required.
The research, referred to as “Alumni,” prioritized security by means of cautious design. The nuclear reactor solely activates when the spacecraft is way from Earth in a protected orbit. Earlier than activation, the uranium gasoline has very low radioactivity and isn’t poisonous. A number of radiation shields defend the crew through the quick engine burns that final lower than 2 hours. The reactor is designed by no means to return to Earth’s ambiance. The analysis staff spent over a 12 months analyzing this know-how and concluded it’s possible for long-term improvement. Nonetheless, there’s nonetheless vital work forward, together with laboratory testing of the brand new ceramic-metal reactor design, constructing protected testing services, and fixing technical challenges like gasoline sourcing and reactor restart techniques.
Nuclear thermal propulsion may revolutionize area journey, making missions to Mars and the Moon sooner and extra sensible. Whereas the know-how is promising and seems protected, it is going to take a few years of improvement earlier than we see nuclear-powered spacecraft heading to the Crimson Planet. It’s nice to see Europe demonstrating that it has the experience to develop this know-how, probably ushering in a brand new period of area exploration the place distant worlds turn out to be extra accessible than ever earlier than
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