Over the past five years, China has repeatedly stunned the U.S. intelligence community by making rapid progress in its space exploration program, landing a rover on the far side of the moon and completing its own space station in Earth orbit. Their success signaled a new space race between Washington and Beijing; This time, the ultimate goal was to send a manned mission to Mars, and each was racing to be the first to land humans on the other planet.

America’s success can be attributed to a team of scientists based in Idaho Falls.

Engineers at the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory are leading a nationwide team of scientists to improve the capabilities of the nuclear thermal engine, a technology that NASA hopes will halve travel time to Mars. This is an ambitious project that could change the future of human space travel.

“Finally, NASA is looking at a nuclear-thermal solution to get to Mars,” Sebastian Corbisiero, senior technical advisor for advanced concepts at Idaho National Laboratory, told McClatchy in an interview. “There are additional technologies that need to be developed to achieve the higher capabilities required for a Mars mission.”

In an interview with McClatchy, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said that NASA aims to reach Mars by 2040 and is working on completely new technologies for this mission. Mars launch opportunities with conventional technology appear only every 26 months, Nelson McClatchy said. Missing the launch window could mean a delay of several years, and if something goes wrong during the flight, the crew will be left alone in deep space.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea to go to Mars with conventional technology (traditional propulsion) because it takes seven to nine months to get there. Once you get there, you’re going to have to stay on the surface for maybe a year, maybe two, until the planets realign before you can come back,” Nelson McClatchy said . “So I think one of the important conditions is that we need to have nuclear electric or nuclear thermal engines that will get us there faster.”

The sheer length of the journey means the crew will need more food, equipment and physical and mental stamina than any mission ever tested, Nelson said. A heavy launch vehicle will be required to carry an unprecedented payload from Earth. The longer the journey into deep space takes, the longer astronauts will be exposed to dangerous levels of microgravity and high doses of radiation. They will make their final approach to Mars with impaired vestibular systems, atrophied muscles, impaired immune systems and impaired vision.

They would then have to descend into an atmosphere thick enough to kill them, but too thin to be used as a barrier to slow their descent to the surface. If they succeed, they will find themselves on the other side of the sun and there will be no one left to help them.

Modern rockets are powered by traditional internal combustion engines, which require significant amounts of fuel to sustain flight. While a chemical engine could take a spacecraft to Mars, a nuclear reactor engine could be much more efficient by heating frozen hydrogen to high temperatures and using exhaust gases as propellant, continuing to accelerate the vehicle throughout its long journey. It shortens the journey time to Mars.

Corbisiero said Idaho National Laboratory is working to increase control over the engine’s speed, increase its efficiency and control heat output.

Reducing travel times could reduce many of the logistical hurdles and risks that currently weigh on the mission, Nelson said. NASA is also working on radiation shielding, which prevents the use of heavy metals such as steel and the creation of centrifugal force on the spacecraft that would create artificial gravity for the crew.

“A very strong sense of urgency.”

At the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in Arlington, Virginia, Tabitha Dodson is working to revive a nuclear thermal engine project that began in the Apollo era but was shelved after the United States abandoned human spaceflight in the 1970s.

In an interview, Dodson compared Washington’s decision to let the technology languish to Beijing’s 1525 order to amass and destroy China’s world-class shipping fleet and cede naval power for future generations.

“I have a very strong sense of urgency,” said Dodson, head of the nuclear thermal rocket engine program at DARPA. “This amazing support from various government agencies across the country (at the Congressional and presidential levels) is so overwhelming that I feel like we need to do this right now because we might miss our chance. .”

Dodson said he is “extremely confident” that DARPA and its main private industrial partner, Texas-based Lockheed Martin, will successfully demonstrate their rocket, known as DRACO, in 2027.

But DRACO will be only the first test of nuclear propulsion technology in Earth orbit. Corbisiero explained that his team is working to achieve the success expected from DRACO by increasing the efficiency of the rocket fuel and the speed scale of the nuclear thermal engine in preparation for longer missions.

Dodson and Corbisiero admitted that they were working on an internally set deadline of 2040 to reach Mars and expressed confidence that it could be achieved.

“Technologically it is definitely in our hands,” Corbisiero said. “This is not the place where you need to invent new physics or magical inventions.”

A senior official from President Joe Biden’s administration told McClatchy that moving technology forward is a White House priority.

“Some of these core technologies are crucial for us to realize a manned mission to Mars,” the senior official said. “We know it will take us a long time to develop this early-stage technology because these are long-term needs.”

Jim Bridenstine, NASA administrator under former President Donald Trump, told McClatchy that a trip to Mars made traveling to the moon easier.

“Humanity will eventually walk on the surface of Mars, and I think it will be an extraordinary moment,” Bridenstine added. “Who will be first? I don’t know”.

China is working on nuclear engine development

Chinese officials also appear to be working on their own nuclear engine projects.

In November 2022, on Hainan Island, where China is building a launch pad for its heaviest rockets, Wu Weiren, the architect of China’s lunar program, gave a presentation previewing China’s future mission plans, which include nuclear-powered spacecraft designs. made. according to data. To proposal slides obtained by McClatchy.

“This has real technological implications, including the management of various environments in space,” said Chris Carberry, CEO and co-founder of Explore Mars, Inc. “And if they’re ahead of us on Mars, they’re probably doing it much closer to Earth.”

Chinese officials have been tight-lipped about plans for a manned mission to Mars. But at a space exploration conference in Russia in 2021, a top executive at China’s largest space launch vehicle maker said Beijing had a road map to send people and establish a base there by the mid-2030s.

China’s space program is advancing at an extraordinary pace and could hinder U.S. freedom of action in space by the end of the decade, U.S. intelligence and national security officials told McClatchy.

“Mars is a target on the horizon,” said Scott Pace, executive secretary of the National Space Council under the Trump administration. “Landing on Mars – if they can do it – will impact the narrative of China as the great power of the 21st century.” “But having that goal and achieving it are two different things,” he added.