How Nuclear Rockets Will Get Us To Mars and Beyond?

Current generation of rocket engines burn good old kerosene as their fuel source.

The next generation of liquid rocket engines will be powered by liquid methane.

Methane is an excellent fuel source because it is one of the most abundant chemicals on our planet.

The methane engine like the Raptor is going to be the best bet for traveling to destinations like Mars .

The idea of turning a nuclear reactor into a rocket engine is an idea that has been contemplated since the dawn of the nuclear age, back in the 1940s .

The idea is that by using nuclear energy, we can get the trip time to Mars down from 8 months to just 100 days, and that's very important to making Mars a truly practical destination.

Russia has already launched at least 30 nuclear reactors into space.

Russia is developing a nuclear powered spaceship that could transport people and supplies from the orbit of one planet to another.

The project Zeus would use a 500 kilowatt nuclear reactor to travel from the moon to Venus , where it would use the planet's gravity to change course towards a final destination of Jupiter .

The reactor on board Zeus is designed to last a period of 10 to 12 years , so in theory they could go much farther than Jupiter with this spaceship.