I’ve grown up with rockets that burn chemical fuel, but NASA’s next big leap in propulsion could make those engines look as dated as steam trains. By turning to nuclear power in space, the agency is ...

The USA's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has finalised an agreement with Lockheed Martin to begin work on the fabrication and design of an experimental nuclear thermal rocket and its engine ...

Get ready because the future of traveling to other planets just got a massive upgrade. Pulsar Fusion, a U.K.-based aerospace company, is developing a compact fusion engine called the Dual Direct ...

A new kind of space engine could change how we explore the solar system, and it's powered by the same force that lights up the stars. A British startup called Pulsar Fusion is working on a nuclear ...

Jim Bickford is leading the Thin Film Isotope Nuclear Engine Rocket (TFINER) project to develop a system for propelling a craft through space faster and farther than ever before. This technology has ...

On Mars, NASA's Perseverance rover is settling in after landing last week. The space agency also hopes one day to send people to the red planet. But getting there will be tough. NPR's Geoff Brumfiel ...

A British startup called Pulsar Fusion has come up with a wild new concept for a nuclear fusion-powered space rocket that, it claims, could significantly cut down the time it takes to travel to Mars ...

Getting to Mars takes a really long time, about 9 months using today’s rocket technology. This is because regular rocket engines burn fuel and oxygen together (like a car engine), but they’re not very ...