Nuclear Thermal Propulsion Systems

Interest in rockets that use fission reactors as the heat source has centered on manned flights to Mars. The demands of such missions require rockets that are several times more powerful than the chemical rockets in use today. Rocket engines operate according to the basic principles expressed in Newton's third law of motion: for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. In a chemical rocket, hot gases are created by chemical combustion; in a nuclear rocket heating of the propell...