Weapons maker Lockheed Martin has been awarded a contract by a U.S. Department of Defense agency to develop a nuclear-powered spacecraft for the purposes of exploration and national defense, the company said on Wednesday.
I thought the reason we don’t generally use nuclear fuel for spacecraft is the risk of a launch failure spreading radioactive debris over a potentially huge area.
Those days are over and conveniently ignored all the RTGs we’ve got all over the solar system. Now China is planning to plant a nuclear reactor at Shackleton Crater on the moon and multiple agencies, all over the world, are working toward fission and fusion drives.
I thought the reason we don’t generally use nuclear fuel for spacecraft is the risk of a launch failure spreading radioactive debris over a potentially huge area.
So that’s why neither SpaceX nor Boeing got the contract.
Those days are over and conveniently ignored all the RTGs we’ve got all over the solar system. Now China is planning to plant a nuclear reactor at Shackleton Crater on the moon and multiple agencies, all over the world, are working toward fission and fusion drives.