Russia's state nuclear corporation, Rosatom, believes that a new nuclear engine could send humans to Mars in a fraction of the time that it would take conventional rocket engines.
WIRED reports that current technology could get humans to the Red Planet in about 18 months' time, but that the engines would exhaust their fuel supply to get there — leaving no way home for prospective space pioneers.
Rosatom, however, said recently that it is working on an engine — likely utilizing nuclear fission — that could make the trip in 45 days and pack enough fuel to make it back to Earth.
Officials hope to launch a prototype by 2025, but observers are skeptical of that timeline for financial reasons rather than scientific ones.
(AP Photo)After all, WIRED reports, the U.S. and Russia each launched satellites into space using fission at the height of the Cold War.
Satellites are much lighter than the kind of spacecraft needed to go to another planet, and experts said although the engine doesn't present many technical challenges, designing a vehicle around it could be prohibitively expensive — particularly amid Russia's highly publicized economic problems.
WIRED reports that the country budgeted 15 billion rubles, or $700 million, for the project — likely only a tiny fraction of what it would need for a launch.
Even without making its Mars timetable, however, Rosatom's nuclear engine could still help spaceflight. Satellites equipped with nuclear engines, for one, wouldn't exhaust their fuel supplies during routine course corrections and could therefore stay in orbit for longer periods of time.
