Very much doubt that man will reach Mars safely and return without nuclear propulsion. US Navy nuclear technology is really what Musk and Space X needs.
Splitting the Atom sounds like a real accomplishment but they don’t actually split any atoms. The atoms don’t even really split. The lose neutrons and protons from their nuclei which might be whole helium atoms but that really happens by itself. The only real work that people can do to make nuclear reactions occur is to concentrate unstable elements so that when the neutrons and protons come off they hit atoms nearby causing them to become unstable. The reactions follow each other.
This is how Iran is building nuclear weapons. They take natural uranium and concentrate the less stable isotopes so that they can cause chain reactions which won’t really happen without concentration.
“Rolls-Royce and UK Space Agency launch study into nuclear-powered space exploration.”...and then demanded that President Trump be impeached and all of his supporters be jailed for terrorism.
What is surprising is that the idea has gotten so little traction before now and even now the interest is far less than it ought to be.
Our military navies have decades of safe experience with small reactors for transportation - submarines and aircraft carriers.
Yet, given the heavy weight of those power plants, we first might need to be planning on two stage long distance manned space flight.
The first stage would be on some sort of reusable vehicles that spend most of their fuel on a trip up to very high earth orbit where waits a space docking station for longer range space vehicles.
Those longer range vehicles will stay there for maintenance as well and avoid the heavy lifting costs of getting back to earth orbit.
The short range vehicles will need far less fuel to safely ferry their passengers and payloads back to earth than they needed to get to the orbiting docking station.
It is at that docking station the second stage would begin, using nuclear powered vehicles that will not need additional fuel to make many long range round trip space voyages. Keeping the reactors from overheating will use the cold void of space instead of seawater. Those longer range vehicles will stay there at the docking station for maintenance and awaiting subsequent voyages, avoiding the heavy lifting costs of getting back to earth orbit again.
Many science fiction writers already figured out what it has been taking NASA so long to admit.
British hinted about a nuclear drive in their Space 1999 series.
The “Queller Drive”, an atomic engine that generates fast neutrons which are inimical to many life forms. To quote the episode “(the fast neutrons are) spewed out into space, annihilating everything in their path. You’d survive better standing smack in the middle of a nuclear explosion.” Voyager’s sister craft, Voyager Two, proved this when an accident with its Queller Drive destroyed a lunar colony.
Nuclear thermal rockets. Yawn.
Wake me up when someone tries to build a Nuclear Salt-Water Rocket. Now that would be a proper Epstein drive.