Now, NASA proposes to successfully develop a nuclear-powered spacecraft by 2033, which can reach Mars within three months. It can be said that when the news came out, many space fans were excited.
In order to realize the boost of nuclear-powered spacecraft, it is necessary to reach a certain amount of heat. Where there is heat, there is power. This power is likely to be megawatt. It can be said that this energy is huge and requires a nuclear reaction to produce this energy.
Some scientists have proposed to use explosion to propel the spacecraft, which requires the spacecraft to carry a large number of nuclear bombs, throw them out one by one, and then detonate them, and then use the booster on the spacecraft to absorb the shock wave of the nuclear bomb explosion to propel the spacecraft. It can be said that this assumption is inherently difficult, because nuclear bombs are prone to major pollution during the explosion.
Now scientists have put forward another method, that is, using the fission or fusion of nuclear fission, the heat energy generated by nuclear upheaval or fission is injected into the propellant, and liquid hydrogen is used as the propeller.
A large amount of heat energy injected into the propeller will make the liquid hydrogen expand rapidly, and then it will be ejected from the tail of the spacecraft, thus generating a great boost force and pushing the spacecraft forward at a high speed.
NASA will certainly develop the next generation of cooperative propulsion technology, that is, using the heat generated by nuclear fission or nuclear fusion to heat liquid hydrogen and turn it into ionized hydrogen, thus generating heat and reaching Mars in the shortest time through tail boosting.
We look forward to seeing the successful development of nuclear-powered spacecraft as soon as possible, and hope that humans can land on Mars in three months or even less.