Bimodal Nuclear Spacecraft Concept Targets Faster Mars Missions

NASA engineer Kurt Polzin and General Atomics' Robert Schleicher have proposed the S-BNR, a single-reactor design combining nuclear thermal and nuclear electric propulsion. Presented at an AIAA conference and detailed in IEEE Spectrum, it targets a Mars round trip of 335 days or less versus NASA's current 650-day baseline. The reactor would also power life support during cruise. No hardware has been built.