Posted on 01/21/2025 11:03:26 AM PST by Red Badger
Anew type of nuclear thermal propulsion reactor fuel has been successfully tested at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, with hopes that the fuel could take humans to Mars in the not-too-distant future.
Getting to the Red Planet, as things currently stand, will be a long-haul mission. Mars is, on average, 140 million miles from Earth. "Rather than a three-day lunar trip, astronauts bound for Mars would be leaving our planet for roughly three years," NASA explains, adding that such a mission would require the crew to be self-sufficient for long periods of the trip.
"Facing a communication delay of up to 20 minutes one way, the possibility of equipment failures or medical emergencies, and a critical need to ration food and supplies, astronauts must be capable of confronting an array of situations with minimal support from teams on Earth."
NASA – and any others eyeing up the planet for a human mission – would rather cut this travel time down as much as possible to ensure astronaut safety. Apart from anything else, exposing astronauts to higher levels of radiation, free from Earth's protective atmosphere, is not ideal.
However, we are reaching the limits of how far and fast we can propel humans – and all the things they need to live – across space. Traditional chemical propulsion is limited too much by its own mass. It takes a lot of it to get spaceships up to good speeds, and using these methods will take at least six months to get to the Red Planet, with a return journey of about the same time.
As such, scientists are looking into other methods of propulsion, from pulsed plasma thrusters to solar sails. One promising option is Nuclear Thermal Propulsion (NTP).
"NTP systems work by pumping a liquid propellant, most likely hydrogen, through a reactor core," the US Office of Nuclear Energy explains. "Uranium atoms split apart inside the core and release heat through fission. This physical process heats up the propellant and converts it to a gas, which is expanded through a nozzle to produce thrust."
It was suggested that a class of Nuclear Thermal and Nuclear Electric Propulsion (NTP/NEP) systems proposed as part of the 2023 NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program could cut down the travel time to Mars to a much more tolerable 45 days.
General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems (GA-EMS) is developing fuel for an NTP system – and in several high-impact tests at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) run in conjunction with NASA, the fuel withstood a peak temperature of 2,600 Kelvin (2327°C, or 4,220°F).
“The recent testing results represent a critical milestone in the successful demonstration of fuel design for NTP reactors,” Scott Forney, president of GA-EMS, said in a statement. “Fuel must survive extremely high temperatures and the hot hydrogen gas environment that an NTP reactor operating in space would typically encounter. We’re very encouraged by the positive test results proving the fuel can survive these operational conditions, moving us closer to realizing the potential of safe, reliable nuclear thermal propulsion for cislunar and deep space missions.”
The tests were also designed to see whether the fuel would withstand the "extreme operational conditions" of space.
“To the best of our knowledge, we are the first company to use the compact fuel element environmental test (CFEET) facility at NASA MSFC to successfully test and demonstrate the survivability of fuel after thermal cycling in hydrogen representative temperatures and ramp rates,” Dr Christina Back, vice president of GA-EMS Nuclear Technologies and Materials, added.
“We’ve also conducted tests in a non-hydrogen environment at our GA-EMS laboratory, which confirmed the fuel performed exceptionally well at temperatures up to 3000 K [2,727°C, or 4,940°F], which would enable the NTP system to be two-to-three times more efficient than conventional chemical rocket engines," Back continued.
"We are excited to continue our collaboration with NASA as we mature and test the fuel to meet the performance requirements for future cislunar and Mars mission architectures.”
Of course, further design and testing will be needed before NASA can think about adopting this technology. But if all goes well, this could significantly cut down the time it would take to get humans to Mars.
Ping!...................
They aren’t using green energy windmill power?
Send a robot to plant the American flag. It won’t mind waiting around a year or two.
EXACTLY what’s needed, and by that I mean a more continuous propulsion system. Three year trip time is way too much and shouldn’t be necessary.
Why does it feel like we’re already on Mars...
“3000 K [2,727°C, or 4,940°F]”
What about Rankine? I only work with R.
Just think, of we hadn’t pissed away those billions on Ukraine and the *Trillions* in SWA, we could have spent that to have a working Mars spaceship by now.
Traveling fast creates challenges with slowing down.
Where does it say that an astronaut has to be a human being? Nothing against Apollo 14 astronaut Alan Shepard, but we probably could design and train an extraterrestrial space robot to plant the Stars & Stripes on Mars and then hit a bucket of golf balls toward it.
They turn around and do a slow down burn. The whole thing has challenges but 45 days versus 3 years is solving the biggest challenge to begin with.
If that slow down burn fails you keep going and speed out into space. But that pretty much is true with conventional fuel. You need to fire rockets to enter Mars orbit, and to come home.
NASA will take forever and cost the taxpayer 100s of billions and Musk can’t get his hands on this fuel, D’oh
“Traditional chemical propulsion is limited too much by its own mass.”
“NTP systems work by pumping a liquid propellant, most likely hydrogen, through a reactor core,” the US Office of Nuclear Energy explains. “Uranium atoms split apart inside the core and release heat through fission. This physical process heats up the propellant and converts it to a gas, which is expanded through a nozzle to produce thrust.”
it really does not take much heat to convert Hydrogen from a liquid to a gas, not sure why you need a nuclear reaction.
and you have the same reaction mass problem that they claim to have solved.
I like the idea of setting off a nuke a few miles behind the ship and letting the shockwave propel it to Mars.
1979, created a fusion powered rocket engine design. Fuel is an “ice cycle” that is cut, and then lasers work on that bit of fuel, to create the reaction.
The reaction force is exhausted to space.
So, the ship has both:
- traditional fuel powered rocket engines / thrusters
- fusion powered rocket engine for cruise and long distance
Now if Sheila Jackson Lee mentions that flag on Mars AGAIN, she might be right this time. She could always say that at the time, she was speaking in future tense.
She’s dead, Jim....................
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