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 ...

That something is nuclear propulsion. Essentially, a nuclear rocket engine is a reactor that has hydrogen running through it as a propellant, which is heated to an astonishing 3,000 K (2,727 °C, 4,940 ...