Nuclear thermal propulsion, or NTP, is a potentially game-changing technology for NASA's crewed missions to Mars in the 2040 timeframe. NTP engines use a nuclear reactor to heat hydrogen to ultra ...

NASA and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) are co-sponsoring the Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations (DRACO) program to test a nuclear thermal rocket engine in ...

NASA plans to send crewed missions to Mars over the next decade – but the 140 million-mile (225 million-kilometer) journey to the red planet could take several months to years round trip.