A few weeks ago, a spending bill passed by Congress included $100 million earmarked for NASA to develop nuclear thermal rocket engines. In spite of the ever-present backlash to nuclear material, it’s not uncommon when it comes to space exploration. The Curiosity rover is just one of many NASA missions powered by nuclear material, in this case, a multi-mission radioisotope thermoelectric generator (MMRTG) that converts heat from decaying plutonium-238 into electricity. But that’s robotic and doesn’t impact humans, you say? The Apollo lunar landing missions also had nuclear generators on board; the ALSEPs used radioisotope thermoelectric generators to power some of the surface experiments.
Of course, a nuclear power plant for an instrument isn’t the same as a nuclear engine, but the challenges of working with the dangerous material remain. And yet, this won’t be the first time the space agency has tried to harness nuclear power for space travel. A small number of programs tried to develop nuclear power for manned space missions in the 1960s, one of which was called NERVA.
