00:04NASA wants to send a manned space mission to Mars by the year 2030 and while astronauts are no doubt
00:09lining up for the opportunity they will spend around seven months in transit that's according to NASA and that might
00:14be why the space agency is looking to build one of these a nuclear thermal or nuclear electric propulsion engine
00:20to get us there and they say could cut travel time in space exponentially lowering the transit period to Mars
00:26to just 45 days nuclear thermal propulsion
00:29is half century old tech involving the heating of liquid nitrogen with a nuclear reactor ionizing it and forcing it
00:35through nozzles for thrust nuclear electric propulsion on the other hand uses a nuclear reactor to power an electric hall
00:41effect thruster or an engine that creates an electromagnetic field that ionizes and forces inert gases to accelerate producing thrust
00:48while neither of these produce the same amount of thrust as conventional rocket boosters they can maintain thrust for extremely
00:54long periods of time and in a place like space where once you start moving you never slow down that
00:59continue to
00:59acceleration is turned into massive speeds over time resulting in shorter trips to Mars
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