page_title: Nuclear propulsion
section_title: Nuclear thermal rocket
hierarchical_section_title: Nuclear propulsion / Spacecraft / Nuclear thermal rocket
caption_attribution_description: English: Bimodal Nuclear Thermal Rockets conduct nuclear fission reactions similar to those safely employed at nuclear power plants including submarines. The energy is used to heat the liquid hydrogen propellant. Advocates of nuclear powered spacecraft point out that at the time of launch, there is almost no radiation released from the nuclear reactors. The nuclear-powered rockets are not used to lift off the Earth. Nuclear thermal rockets can provide great performance advantages compared to chemical propulsion systems. Nuclear power sources could also be used to provide the spacecraft with electrical power for operations and scientific instrumentation.
context_page_description: Nuclear propulsion includes a wide variety of propulsion methods that use some form of nuclear reaction as their primary power source. The idea of using nuclear material for propulsion dates back to the beginning of the 20th century. In 1903 it was hypothesized that radioactive material, radium, might be a suitable fuel for engines to propel cars and boats. H. G. Wells picked up this idea in his 1914 fiction work The World Set Free.
context_section_description: Bimodal Nuclear Thermal Rockets conduct nuclear fission reactions similar to those employed at nuclear power plants including submarines. The energy is used to heat the liquid hydrogen propellant. Advocates of nuclear-powered spacecraft point out that at the time of launch, there is almost no radiation released from the nuclear reactors. The nuclear-powered rockets are not used to lift off the Earth. Nuclear thermal rockets can provide great performance advantages compared to chemical propulsion systems. Nuclear power sources could also be used to provide the spacecraft with electrical power for operations and scientific instrumentation.
  NERVA - NASA's Nuclear Energy for Rocket Vehicle Applications, a US nuclear thermal rocket program
  Project Rover - an American project to develop a nuclear thermal rocket. The program ran at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory from 1955 through 1972.
  Project Timberwind 1987-1991
caption: Bimodal Nuclear Thermal Rockets - conduct nuclear fission reactions similar to those employed at nuclear power plants including submarines. The energy is used to heat the liquid hydrogen propellant. The vehicle depicted is the "Copernicus" an upper stage assembly being designed for the Space Launch System (2010).
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