New Nuclear Spacecraft Idea Could Cut Mars Travel Time in Half

NASA engineer Kurt Polzin and General Atomics' Robert Schleicher have proposed a single-reactor spacecraft called the S-BNR. Instead of burning fuel like today's rockets, it would use nuclear reactions both to push the ship forward and to generate electricity for astronauts during the trip. Presented at an AIAA conference and detailed in IEEE Spectrum, the concept aims for a Mars round trip of 335 days or less versus NASA's current 650-day baseline. No hardware has been built.