Reach Mars

NASA revives its Cold War-era idea of using atomic rockets to create 'drastically smaller' craft that will get to Mars by the 2030s

It may sound like something from pulp 1950s science fiction, but NASA is pinning its hopes of landing man on Mars on atomic rockets.

The space agency is planning to dust off cold-war era technology and bring it up to modern standards to achieve its goal of a manned Mars mission in the 2030s.

NASA says it will use technology it discontinued in the 1970s to create 'drastically smaller' craft capable of greater speeds than their non-nuclear rivals.

This system could cut the voyage time to Mars from six months to four and safely deliver human explorers by reducing their exposure to cosmic radiation.

As we push out into the solar system, nuclear propulsion may offer the only truly viable technology option to extend human reach to the surface of Mars and to worlds beyond,' said Sonny Mitchell, nuclear thermal propulsion project manager at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Centre, in Huntsville, Alabama.

Russia also has plans to reach the red planet using nuclear technologies. 

Russia's Rosatorm Corporation plans this year to test a nuclear engine for a spacecraft that can travel to Mars.