NASA's 'Nuclear Option' May Be Crucial for Getting Humans to Mars

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January 27, 2022

Dear Reader, Spurred by a looming deadline to send astronauts to Mars, after more than a half-century of fitful efforts NASA is once again pursuing the "nuclear option"—that is, the development and use of spaceborne fission reactors and nuclear-powered rockets. Will this time be different, or will it be yet another false start in the long quest to realize atomic fission's revolutionary potential for spaceflight? Read our lead story to find out—but, for balance, also check out this week's other nuclear-themed piece, about the toxic legacy of atmospheric nuclear weapon tests as experienced by "downwinders" who lived near U.S. blast sites. Elsewhere, we have fresh updates on the James Webb Space Telescope, the search for "Hawking radiation" from merging black holes, a commemoration of the 55th anniversary of the Apollo 1 disaster and more.

Lee Billings, Senior Editor, Space & Physics @LeeBillings

Space Exploration NASA's 'Nuclear Option' May Be Crucial for Getting Humans to Mars After decades of false starts, a new push for nuclear-powered rocketry could make or break the space agency's plans to send astronauts to the Red Planet By David W. Brown

Space Exploration Whistleblowers Make Spaceflight Safer, Says Witness to Apollo Tragedy As we continue to push into space, the 55th anniversary of the deadly fire reminds us to prioritize both safety and people By Matthew Beddingfield

Astronomy Webb Telescope Reaches Its Final Destination Far from Earth The ambitious observatory has arrived at its home—near a gravitationally stable spot called L2—for a premier view of the universe By Alexandra Witze,Nature magazine

Space Exploration What Is a Lagrange Point? NASA's James Webb Space Telescope will travel to a special spot where the gravity from Earth and the sun is balanced By Clara Moskowitz,Matthew Twombly

Cosmology The James Webb Space Telescope Could Solve One of Cosmology's Deepest Mysteries The observatory's unprecedented infrared measurements might at last bridge a growing rift between astronomers over how fast the universe is expanding By Daniel Leonard

Black Holes Could Echoes from Colliding Black Holes Prove Stephen Hawking's Greatest Prediction? Subtle signals from black hole mergers might confirm the existence of "Hawking radiation"—and gravitational-wave detectors may have already seen them By Anil Ananthaswamy

Public Health Nuclear-Testing 'Downwinders' Speak About History and Fear An archival project aims to document the experiences of people who suffered from U.S. nuclear weapons testing By Sarah Scoles

Astronomy SpaceX's Starlink Satellites Leave Streaks in Asteroid-Hunting Telescope's Images Despite efforts to reduce light pollution from the satellites, their disruptions of astronomical observations are increasing at an alarming pace By Tereza Pultarova,SPACE.com

Space Exploration Cosmic-Level Anxiety By Andrea Gawrylewski

FROM THE STORE Scientific American Space & Physics, Volume 5, Issue 1

QUOTE OF THE DAY "I remember the clouds coming over our town and writing our names in the dust." Sandra Evans Walsh, a "downwinder" who was exposed as a child to radioactive fallout from nearby U.S. nuclear weapons tests

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FROM THE ARCHIVE Can We Gauge Quantum Time of Flight? Measuring the time it takes particles to travel between two points may be the best test yet for Bohmian mechanics By Anil Ananthaswamy | October 2021

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