A nuclear thermal rocket is a proposed spacecraft propulsion technology.

In a nuclear thermal
rocket a working fluid, usually liquid hydrogen, is heated to a high temperature in a nuclear
reactor, and then expands through a rocket nozzle to create thrust. In this kind of thermal rocket,
the nuclear reactor's energy replaces the chemical energy of the propellant's reactive chemicals in
a chemical rocket. The thermal heater / inert propellant paradigm as opposed to the reactive
propellants of chemical rockets turns out to produce a superior effective exhaust velocity, and
therefore a superior propulsive efficiency, with specific impulses on the order of twice that of
chemical engines. The overall gross lift-off mass of a nuclear rocket is about half that of a
chemical rocket, and hence when used as an upper stage it roughly doubles or triples the payload
carried to orbit.[citation needed]

A nuclear engine was considered for some time as a replacement for the J-2 used on the S-II and
S-IVB stages on the Saturn V and Saturn I rockets. Originally "drop-in" replacements were
considered for higher performance, but a larger replacement for the S-IVB stage was later
studied for missions to Mars and other high-load profiles, known as the S-N. Nuclear thermal
space tugs were originally planned as one component of the Space Transportation System, taking
payloads from low Earth orbit to higher orbits, the Moon, and other planets. Robert Bussard
proposed the single-stage-to-orbit "Aspen" vehicle using a nuclear thermal rocket for propulsion
and liquid hydrogen propellant for partial shielding against neutron back scattering in the lower
atmosphere.[1] The Soviet Union studied nuclear engines for their own moon rockets, notably
upper stages of the N-1, although they never entered an extensive testing program like the one
the U.S. conducted throughout the 1960s at the Nevada Test Site. Despite many successful
firings, American nuclear rockets did not fly before the space race ended.

To date, no nuclear thermal rocket has flown, although the NERVA NRX/EST and NRX/XE
were built and tested with flight design components. The highly successful U.S. Project Rover
which ran from 1955 through 1972 accumulated over 17 hours of run time. The NERVA
NRX/XE, judged by SNPO to be the last "technology development" reactor necessary before
proceeding to flight prototypes, accumulated over 2 hours of run time, including 28 minutes at
full power.[2] The Russian nuclear thermal rocket RD-0410 was also claimed by the Soviets to
have gone through a series of tests at the nuclear test site near Semipalatinsk.[3][4]

The United States tested twenty different sizes and designs during Project Rover and NASA's
NERVA program from 1959 through 1972 at the Nevada Test Site, designated Kiwi, Phoebus,
NRX/EST, NRX/XE, Pewee, Pewee 2 and the Nuclear Furnace, with progressively higher power
densities culminating in the Pewee (1970) and Pewee 2.[2] Tests of the improved Pewee 2 design
were cancelled in 1970 in favor of the lower-cost Nuclear Furnace (NF-1), and the U.S. nuclear
rocket program officially ended in spring of 1973. Current (2010) 110 kN (25,000 lbf) reference
designs (NERVA-Derivative Rockets, or NDRs) are based on the Pewee, and have specific
impulses of 925 seconds.[citation needed]