The headline in a 2024 article in the South China Morning Post: "Starship rival: Chinese scientists build prototype engine for nuclear-powered spaceship to Mars."
Its subhead told of how a "1.5 megawatt-class"fission reactor passes initial ground tests as global race for space. The lithium-cooled system is designed to expand from a container-sized volume into a structure as large as a 20-story building in space."
The article began by saying a "a collaboration of more than 10 research institutes and universities across China have made significant strides toward interplanetary travel with the development of a nuclear fission technology."
The Russians are bullish on the speed a nuclear-powered rocket could, they believe, attain. "Mars in 30 days? Russia unveils prototype of plasma engine," was the headline last year of an article put out by World Nuclear News.
It began: "A laboratory protype of a plasma electric rocket engine based on a magnetic plasma accelerator has been produced by Rosatom scientists, who say it could slash travel time to Mars to one or two months." (Rosatom is the Russian State Atomic Energy Corporation.)
The Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space was formed in 1992 at a gathering in Washington, D.C. and now has membership throughout the world. It has organized protests at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida to NASA launches of spacecraft using radioisotope thermoelectric generators. Using the heat of plutonium-238, the RTG's generate electricity to run instruments, not to propel spacecraft.
The largest protest organized by the Global Network involved the Cassini space probe mission to Saturn in 1997 with 73 pounds of plutonium in three RTGs, the largest amount of plutonium ever on a spacecraft.
The most dangerous portion of that mission was when NASA had the Cassini probe perform a "slingshot maneuver," sending it back towards Earth to use Earth's gravity to increase its velocity. If, as NASA said in an Environmental Impact Statement for Cassini, there was an "inadvertent reentry" into the Earth's atmosphere in that maneuver causing it to disintegrate and release its plutonium, an estimated "5 billion billion"of the world population"could receive 99 percent of the radiation exposure."
NASA insisted at the time that beyond the orbit of Mars, it was necessary to use plutonium-powered RTGs. However, in 2011 NASA launched its Juno space probe to Jupiter which instead of RTGs used three solar arrays to generate onboard electricity. Juno orbited and studied Jupiter, where sunlight is a hundredth of what it is on Earth.
In the U.S., in 2021 a report titled "Space Nuclear Propulsion for Human Mars Exploration" was issued by a committee of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine of the U.S.
The 104-page report also lays out "synergies" in space nuclear activities between the NASA and the U.S. military. It said: "The report stated: "Space nuclear propulsion and power systems have the potential to provide the United States with military advantages"NASA could benefit programmatically by working with a DoD [Department of Defense] program having national security objectives."'
What might be an "anomaly" involving a nuclear-powered rocket.
"Is using nuclear materials for space travel dangerous, genius, or a little of both?" was the heading of a 2021 article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
With the U.S. setting a goal of "a human mission to Mars," said the article by Susan D'Agostino, "the words 'nuclear' and 'space' are again popping up together".Nuclear propulsion systems for space exploration-- should they materialize-- are expected to offer significant advantages, including the possibility of sending spacecraft farther, in less time, and more efficiently than traditional chemical propulsion systems."
"But," the piece went on, "extreme physical conditions on the launchpad, in space, and during reentry raise questions about risk-mitigation measures, especially when nuclear materials are present. To realize the goal of nuclear-propelled, human mission to Mars, scientists must overcome significant challenges that include-- but go beyond-- the technical. That is, any discussion about such an uncommon journey must also consider relevant medical, environmental, economic, political, and ethical questions."
The piece said that "attaching what amounts to a nuclear reactor to a human-occupied spaceship is not without risks."
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