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The project, in concert with US government agency DARPA, aims to develop pioneering propulsion system for space travel as soon as 2027:
The project is intended to develop a pioneering propulsion system for space travel far different from the chemical systems prevalent since the modern era of rocketry dawned almost a century ago.
"Using a nuclear thermal rocket allows for faster transit time, reducing risk for astronauts," Nasa said in a press release.
[...] Using current technology, Nasa says, the 300m-mile journey to Mars would take about seven months. Engineers do not yet know how much time could be shaved off using nuclear technology, but Bill Nelson, the Nasa administrator, said it would allow spacecraft, and humans, to travel in deep space at record speed.
[...] Using low thrust efficiently, nuclear electric propulsion systems accelerate spacecraft for extended periods and can propel a Mars mission for a fraction of the propellant of high-thrust systems.
Also at CNN and Engadget. Link to Nasa press release.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Immerman on Friday January 27, @04:03PM
Oh, and as for the danger of nuclear fuel in a spaceship... it doesn't really exist.
You're already flying through a radioactive hellscape filled with far higher energy cosmic rays
It's easy to shield the reactor from the passenger compartment by putting your water tanks between them - every ~7cm of water halves the radiation levels, and it's not going to take much to bring the reactor-sourced radiation down below the ambient background radiation of interplanetary space.
Finally, nuclear fuel isn't substantially radioactive (if it were it wouldn't still exist after 4.5 billion years in the ground), only the nuclear waste and the reactor itself are. So launching fuel into orbit is a non-issue - way less dangerous than launching a probe/rover with a standard RTG into orbit, which *is* highly radioative within its protective casing.