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Once we’ve demonstrated a 200-kilowatt prototype engine operating at full power on the ground, the next step is testing an identical version in space. We’re already testing the prototype unit in our vacuum chamber here in Houston, and we’re designing the actual flight engine, which is called the VF-200. We signed an agreement with NASA last December to actually mount the VF-200 on the International Space Station in 2012 or 2013. > We would hope that, if not the US, maybe the Europeans, the Chinese, the Russians, or somebody else will develop a nuclear-electric power capability that we can marry...

This coming January, Ad Astra Rocket Company will test the VX-200, a full-scale ground prototype of the variable specific impulse magnetoplasma rocket (VASIMIR), first conceived in 1979 by the company's president and CEO, astronaut and plasma physicist Franklin Chang Diaz. The rocket is an attempt to improve on current space-propulsion technologies, and it would use hot plasma, heated by radio waves and controlled by a magnetic field, for propulsion. Chang Diaz believes that the system would allow rockets to travel through space at higher speeds, with greater fuel efficiency. If the prototype demonstrates sufficient efficiency, thrust, and specific impulse on...