NASA's NEW Nuclear Mars Rocket Engine is somehow better & faster than SpaceX Starship...

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NASA's NEW Nuclear Mars Rocket Engine is somehow better & faster than SpaceX Starship...
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#alphatech
#techalpha
#spacex
#elonmusk
#starship
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NASA's NEW Nuclear Mars Rocket Engine is somehow better & faster than SpaceX Starship…
www.space.com/nasa-darpa-nucl...
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NASA's NEW Nuclear Mars Rocket Engine is somehow better & faster than SpaceX Starship...
Six months. This is the period that Elon Musk has estimated for the journey to Mars with Starship, the vehicle is currently operated by a total of 39 Raptor engines.
But you know, six months is very long for anyone, including you and me. And of course, NASA also doesn’t like that.
Therefore, NASA revealed a new engine that will use a new energy source. They claim that it will be more powerful, safer, and can get humans to Mars faster than the Starship and Raptor engines.
So what is that engine? How it’s better than the SpaceX Raptor engine? Why NASA is so confident with its engines?
Stay tuned as we dive and more in today's episode of Alpha Tech!

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17 май 2024

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Комментарии : 420

@yondu689 Месяц назад

It will take NASA 70 years to build it and it will be way way over budget.

@stevenI613 Месяц назад

might see a demo in 2040 and 50 billion later

@rje4242 Месяц назад

NASA doesn't have a new Nuclear Rocket engine. they have a study on paper saying "yeah, this could be cool if somebody made one." there is a company in england that is actually building and testing such an engine, and has discussed a partnership with SpaceX. For comparison the Raptor was in use in 2019 and has been scaling up production since.

@paulmoffat9306 Месяц назад

NASA HAD a working, fully tested and flight ready Nuclear Engine ready to go, in 1974! President Nixon cancelled that along with ending the Apollo missions.

@gregoryfaith4303 Месяц назад

@@paulmoffat9306 Even Nixon, who was a crook, saw it was way too expensive and nixed it.

@TheRetroManRandySavage Месяц назад

NASA couldn't put together a toy from a kinder egg.

@danielbishop2142 Месяц назад

😂 So true

@edwardriffle29 27 дней назад

That is why darpa will do the work

@heels-villeshoerepairs8613 11 дней назад

Ummm, ok.

@TheRetroManRandySavage 11 дней назад

@@heels-villeshoerepairs8613 Ummm, thanks.😂👍

@heels-villeshoerepairs8613 11 дней назад

@TheRetroManRandySavage it is amazing that NASA seem to have all this expertise and yet they can't even find the technology that they "lost" to get back to the moon.

@t4t4s0l 21 день назад

If i got a buck for a every super cool plan the NASA came up with and then failed to deliver after we ended the Moon missions, i would be a billionaire

@jackmorrison8269 13 дней назад

I love all these stories about NASA inventing stuff, meanwhile they use 40 year old tech, and techniques

@MrBigDave65 Месяц назад

This rocket engine would not replace the Merlin or Raptor engines. It would only be used while already in space.

@jessicatymczak5852 Месяц назад

Correct. Nuclear engines have an excellent isp but a very poor thrust to weight ratio. Victor Von Braun was considering it for the Saturn V second stage where TTWR was not so essential. Now there is an even better way to get much higher isp, read “Thermo-Electric Rocket Thruster” if you want to know more (down to 18 days). ☺️

@dingdongheadyuue Месяц назад

The huge problem besides COST is complicated, as hydrogen is almost impossible to seal being the smallest molecule, as small as its atom. Dreaming

@zagreus5773 Месяц назад

The Space Shuttle used hydrogen as fuel. You know you can liquify it, right?

@The1QwertySky Месяц назад

@@zagreus5773 its very hard tho

@jessicatymczak5852 Месяц назад

It already been done for the last 50 years

@jessicatymczak5852 Месяц назад

@@The1QwertySky not really.

@The1QwertySky Месяц назад

@@jessicatymczak5852 it also takes a LOT of energy to get hydrogen, which would be way more efficent to just use the electricity directly to power a motor. Also it takes a LOT of space to store hydrogen, hydrogen cars have way less range than EVs like teslas and in q crash you will end up in low earth orbit in pieces. Just look at atleast 1 hydrogen car review and you will know what I mean

@jakubniegut766 11 дней назад

Spacex will colonise Mars 3 times before NASA will launch rocket with that engine

@jimbeechDasher 8 дней назад

Can I suggest Space X to launch on a Starship then the nuclear is tested in space rather than it blowing up in our atmosphere !

@3dfxvoodoocards6 13 дней назад

6:40 - “Send a crew to Mars in 2030”…. Maybe 2130….

@user-wx1jk6ls1z 29 дней назад

One day we will be building nuclear rockets on the moon where helium-3 is abundant and the material needed to build them will be available.

@scinanisern9845 9 дней назад

As he said, its been around since the sixties. However each attempt has shown that atomic erosion was massive over the internal structures. On every engine they built the erosion was of such nature as to destroy the engine in a period so short as to make its use lost cause. So far Ive seen only the same theories as tried in the past. I expect, as in the case of the large ion thruster which was abandoned in the recent past and long history of failed attempts to accomplish this very same project, its just so much hot air. I still think abandoning the large ion thruster was a bad move. That one looked very promising... but the money was pissed away and whittled down and we all lost instead.

@jamesrichardson1 Месяц назад

Has it been tested???

@danstory4286 13 дней назад

The nuclear ion engine is 80s tech that uses water for fuel. On 150 gallons of water, it could maintain 1g of accelleration before flipping over and doing it again for the remainder of the journey. Optimal time to Mars 36 hours.

@dloui5214 Месяц назад

wow , nasa has made a great progress ! we'll be able to see the commercial version within the next 200 years .

@apaitiadrivationo5628 Месяц назад

NASA has being saying this for the last 60years, I'm growing old already 😅🤣😂

@Mauitaoist 4 дня назад

Starship has already reached orbital altitude and velocity

@ryanab01 Месяц назад

NASA doesn't even build rockets!

@JJ-jx2kd 9 дней назад

If it is NASA claiming this they should have it ready in about 50 or 60 years and about 10 times the actual budget judging from their track record .

@G_Vegas22 6 дней назад

They have had better for over 50 years. This is just what they want to show the public

@alphatech4966 6 дней назад

Yeah!

@somewhereinsthlm2153 Месяц назад

One can attach a Nuclear Thermal Rocket to the back end of Starship to push it forward. This is a win for SpaceX too.

@alphatech4966 Месяц назад

Thank you for your comment!

@kyeshand5256 7 дней назад

Lol nasa better than space x, thats halarious. Also this new ship is just a concept, not real

@andrewcliffe4753 Месяц назад

Can this engine get a rocket off the ground or do passengers need to transfer in orbit. What happens if an atomic rocket explodes on launch

@voytek3999 Месяц назад

You have Excellent Point! The Whole Idea is not only BS(!), IS HS!!! 😮😢😢😂😂😅😊❤ And I'm Not Talking about The Technical Ability and Multiple Technologies We Need to Build This SHIP In Orbit....!😊❤ Let Assume that WE Have It!!!😊❤❤ It Will take 20hours at 3G(!) To Accelerate to Full Speed And 20hours at -3G to Decelerate by Mars! GOOD LUCK WITH THAT!!!😢 I'm being Sarcastic..... I don't know Who Will Survive THAT?... Not Me...

@d_baumberger Месяц назад

NASA can’t put anything in space and they’ve got something new on the growing board. It’s funny.

@Bamdd5 Месяц назад

Nuclear thermal and nuclear electric rocket engines will be the future of exploring/colonizing the solar system. Chemical rockets will still be needed to get off earth, but these new rockets will be used to travel between planets.

@alphatech4966 Месяц назад

Thank you for your comment!

@red7rikki 13 дней назад

Nasal will never get out of the atmosphere simple

@Mauitaoist 4 дня назад

The nuclear engine is for space use only it will not reach escape velocity or be used for launches,it would be unable to land and take off from Mars

@claudiobruno3194 7 дней назад

What is rarely discussed about manned Mars missions and their propulsion systems ids the fact that the longer the trip last the larger the radiation dose the crew gets. A 6-months x 2 round trip means almost a Sievert of radiation dose, the NASA limit for the entire career of astronauts. Thus, the faster the mission, the lower the dose, and nuclear propulsion is definitely better than chemical.

@johnbrobston1334 Месяц назад

Odds are that if this thing is built it will be launched on Super Heavy. Nobody's going to allow a nuclear rocket to be launched from Earth--too much radiation in the exhaust.

@stanleydavidson6543 26 дней назад

No they with go to orbit with starship and super heavy carrying the nuclear engine

@3dfxvoodoocards6 13 дней назад

NASA cannot even send people to the Moon…

@drgror2047 Месяц назад

Somehow? Laws of physics and basic knowledge of rocket engines and ISPs when testing? Clickbait tittle

@deezynar Месяц назад

At a certain point on the trip to mars, you have to flip the ship around and fire the engines to slow you down so you don't blow by Mars. Some mission in the future will have a mechanical failure of some kind that will keep them from refiring the engines.

@redpillcommando Месяц назад

By the time NASA gets off of it's fat bottom and actually builds a atomic rocket, Elon Musk will have five star hotels on Mars.

@searingstatic5235 12 дней назад

Anybody else notice the Pikachu on the top of the raptor engines at 8:26 when elon is by them.

@bradhayes8294 12 дней назад

The problem with traveling at 500,000 mph is how are you going to shield the spacecraft from hitting even tiny micrometeorites? The kinetic energy, KE, involved in a spacecraft traveling at a relative velocity, v, with respect to an object of mass, m, is equal to KE = 1/2·m·v^2. Therefore, decreasing the time required to get from Earth to Mars from 6 months, or 180 days, to 45 days is a 180 days/45 days = 4X increase in speed. The spacecraft would therefore be subjected to a possible 16X increase in kinetic energy collisions with any objects, such as micrometeorites. This is a parameter that will have to be accounted for in the spacecraft design.

@richard--s Месяц назад

SpaceX would not hesitate to include new better engines. Why not. But they are not available yet. Let them first learn to fly a reusable big rocket. It's a word first. No one has done this before. Then when better engines are on the horizon, they can develop them further and use them in their spacecraft. But don't wait 50 years until these new engines become available. Use what we have. And by the way, what do you expect on Mars? It's the same as in open space. No air to breath outside. You have gravity, congratulations! But nothing more. You don't win anything when you arrive faster on Mars. You also have very tight crew spaces on Mars. It's not a big relieve once you are on Mars.

@richard--s Месяц назад

Oh I see, I wrote "It's a word first" ;-) Maybe a word first, but it's a world first ;-)

@stephend4909 Месяц назад

So its an engine project. Nothing yet built or tested. Just guesswork huh? How NASA.

@Danielspacex 4 дня назад

I hope they get it to work. Gotta go faster...

@Orozco_PNW 15 дней назад

Though this is likely many years away, it at least doesn't obsolesce the Starship because Nuclear Rockets will likely never be used for orbital launches, but rather as an interplanetary express.

@emameyer Месяц назад

if this works, Starships can be used as cargo ships. so still plenty usefulness there

@Madness-go3uk 20 дней назад

This should be developed fairly quickly as they already did all the research back in the 50s with project Orion I believe they even made test models

@user-om7yl4dz8h 26 дней назад

So basically invent nuclear fusion (which is perpetually 25 years in the future). Then when we get to the moon, there’s helium-3 just lying around under every rock to fuel it. 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

@chrisshea3244 Месяц назад

NASA can't even get a rocket off the ground. They delay delay delay. Space x runs circles around NASA

@zagreus5773 Месяц назад

SpaceX planned to land on Mars two years ago... Artemis 2 is delayed because of SpaceX a well.

@The1QwertySky Месяц назад

@@zagreus5773 spacex planned and still plans to land on mars around 2030 wdym?.

@zagreus5773 Месяц назад

@@The1QwertySky The original plan was to land 2 cargo Starships on Mars in 2022, then 2 cargo and 2 crewed ships in 2024. Look it up.

@user-ot7nt9tb2q 19 дней назад

You still need to use current rocket propellant to get into orbit. After that, a nuclear rocket can get to the solar system.

@Zepha21 11 дней назад

Now, if we only had Kerbal Space Program 2 not being abandoned, we could also try to land on Duna!

@jamesgoggle3421 12 дней назад

The world doesn’t even have a working fusion reactor yet

@thega.bo.n3423 12 дней назад

Fission and fusion are two entirely different things. They are talking about fission, look it up :)

@reksmeyok1957 Месяц назад

This is a theory which is too good to be feasible for NASA to produce faster and more economical than SpaceX any kind of faster rockets.

@Mauitaoist 4 дня назад

Another huge mistake in this video the nuclear rocket will not be 3 to 4 times more powerful that's untrue the report says it will be 3 to 4 times more efficient

@antonzaretsky9166 Месяц назад

Mean acceleration of a proton in the Large Hadron Collider: 190M g Acceleration necessary to achieve 76% of speed of light in 354 days: 1g

@purcedure 8 дней назад

@All - Going to end like all nuclear disasters, and the challenger. #Boom

@kevinbissett293 Месяц назад

I would sure like to know more detail about the science of exactly what makes this engine feasible. For example, How big would an engine have to be. ETC. I am very detail orientated. Great Episode my Friend. I want to say, Happy Easter to You and Your Team. Happy Easter to All that follow Your Channel. Happy Easter to Elon Musk and his team. Great Episode. Thanks for The All the Work You and Your Team put in this channel. Making each Episode Possible.

@brianmatthews232 Месяц назад

Good luck not getting a leak in Hydrogen storage for months...Ah we don't have any fuel to stop us hitting mars or whizzing past it?

@EVMANVSGAS Месяц назад

If anything Elon will throw these on his rocket and still beat NASA by 30 yrs.

@TheRetroManRandySavage Месяц назад

For sure. Elon will beat them at their own game, as per.

@jeffalbrecht1 Месяц назад

Spacex should jump on this. Don't wait for NASA or it will never get done.

@scottrussell6781 Месяц назад

5000 mph will not get you to mrs in 12 days

@jessicatymczak5852 Месяц назад

Nope, way off, that will not even get you to orbit. More like 1200 days.

@denismoran670 Месяц назад

dON'T WORRY, EVERYONE! tHE nasa/lockheed martin COMBINATION IS ENOUGH TO IDEA NEVER GETS OFF THE DRAWING BOARD! wHOSETHE PENSIONER? iS IT pRESIDENT bIDET? Loved the'slower than **** through a Xmas goose' !

@mikey33409 Месяц назад

Building engines are an art. and we got a few ideas thank u ms

@Designarchi1 10 дней назад

Starship could focus on sending supplies and this rocket could focus on transporting people. That would make the most sense

@mufasachainbreaker7757 12 дней назад

Having starships take people to and from orbit where a space base and space ferry wait is a much better idea than using starship all the way to and from Mars. Especially given that the ferry can be nuclear powered. The big issues with that include development costs and having something that can safely land from martian orbit to the surface and from lunar orbit to the surface, both roles which starship can handle just fine.

@aof9964 13 дней назад

Isn't Draco Russian?? Nevermind I'm thinking drago from Rocky 😂

@spacecadet35 8 дней назад

I am guessing that tis channel is now an AI channel by how many mistakes are in this video. RU-vid, please ban all AI channels and AI made videos.

@Just1heyU Месяц назад

Brings the vastness of space travel into prospective. 🌎

@jojodinger4431 24 дня назад

Nasa needs competition. A good thing what's going on now. A modern day space-race. Let's hope that Nasa shares their knowledge freely in future. At the end it should be a victory for humanity not just for the US, right? I am sure Elon Musk enjoys the fact that he is awakening the sleeping giant Nasa. And if the USA would spend a little bit more for creative rockets instead of destructiv rockets then just that would give more hope for humanity too. Peace to the world.

@Flutes2000 Месяц назад

I think that even if they had a working prototype "better" is a concept that should be left for after FAA launch approval. Boom, woops... More like a space only concept until all the bugs are worked out, and even then, good luck finding someone at the FAA willing to be in the same room with your environmental assessment.

@jimrt1738 Месяц назад

And the moon is made of green cheese 😂😂😂😂.

@riderpaul Месяц назад

Starship would still be required. There needs to be something to get people into space and then you need something to land people on Mars. The nuclear rockets should just stay in space. Essentially SpaceX should have a fleet of starships orbiting Mars and Earth to ferry people to and from the surface. The designs of the Mars and Earth starships would be substantially different.

@protorhinocerator142 Месяц назад

NT doesn't have the raw power to blast a heavy payload into orbit. It's kinda like the ion propulsion. It's great for efficiency, meaning long fuel life, but its output is too slow to get anything to orbit. You have to already be in orbit.

@JustSimplyHack Месяц назад

They will finally release a functional one in 25 years

@riderpaul Месяц назад

Lol, liquid hydrogen is the lightest gas discovered "to date". Lol

@nicksmacro Месяц назад

From the perspective of anyone with the broadest knoledge of the subject, this is truly offensive clickbait. I gave the video 35 seconds where you affirmed the bullshit statement in the click bait title and I click off. Do better...

@Peter8831 Месяц назад

Glad you said that. All these ALPHA TECH videos are terrible Clickbait. I can believe people fall for it, unless these are fake comments.

@knowledgeisgood9645 Месяц назад

Fission: maybe if the materials needed can be found and the weight can be practical. Fusion: We can't produce it anywhere except in bombs. The one time it was produced in a lab the lasers used used orders of magnitude more power than the one produced in the reaction. To hope for a rocket using fusion will remain a hope for many more decades.

@markmyra-cn7rd 9 дней назад

Nuclear rocket technology was pioneered in the 60s by NASA The special metallic materials required for building a serviceable Nuclear powered rocket were developed at that time. It is a more desirable system of propulsion compared to the design tested by Dyson. The Orion project.

@MobileGamer18x Месяц назад

They tryna run that check back up 😂

@michaelkivinen1691 3 дня назад

What was the last thing a person said when he was IGNORANT? She'll be Right Mate.

@alkishadjinicolaou5831 Месяц назад

Is the engine in development?

@StopTheBurn Месяц назад

NASA can't get past themselves to build anything. 😅

@warrenjm9 Месяц назад

Oh, but they HAVE built things. Just not for a commercial market like SpaceX has.

@KiwiBrowserSupport Месяц назад

If nasa laugh or shows attitude means they must have made but with no disclosure policy

@vensroofcat6415 Месяц назад

Aside from all the AI generated nonsense in this video (greenhouse gas methane being environmentally friendly, electrons triggering fission, etc), there's also that hope for nuclear fusion instead of fission. It has significantly higher energy and lower risks. Also recent developments working on quite different designs of fusion generators could eventually produce rocket relevant side products. Nobody will fly stadium sized tokamak. But some compact linear generators or other solutions could actually work as safe and decently efficient impulse generators. Plenty of solar energy up there.

@CraigPybus Месяц назад

You don't use a device puts out loads of radiation to take off or land on a planet that you intend to live on. If it is a rocket you don't make it carry tons of shielding. Both fission and fusion are best as propulsion between planets and unless we have huge breakthroughs in managing radiation, we can use Starship to take off and land. It may even be possible to use the fission or nuclear rocket to push something like Starship to Mars orbit, and push it back. You don't want to drag it. Place its fuel tank and Starships propellant tanks between the reactor and the people.

@jessicatymczak5852 Месяц назад

The fuel is the shielding, it is not the issue. And you would still use chemical engines to land or take off from planets. The actual radiation issue is space radiation, cosmic rays and solar flares. This is why this would be better, all that hydrogen is an excellent radiation shield

@gottfriedheumesser1994 Месяц назад

Fusion energy would be superb! As an old guy, I will soon be waiting for it for seventy years. As long as it does not work on the Earth we need not think about shooting it into space. Nuclear rockets I can only imagine in the upper stages of spacecraft as they do not spoil the earth in case of failures. So nuclear-driven rockets are superb. We only need to get them operating.

@The1QwertySky Месяц назад

you dont know what a nuclear rocket engine is, do you

@vyacheslavromantovsky1238 Месяц назад

Nuclear rockets might be good for a trip between 2 Planets (first around home planet and next around distination planet), but not for starting from a surface or landing on a planet.

@gottfriedheumesser1994 Месяц назад

@@The1QwertySky As you know everything ...

@patsal1948 Месяц назад

It doesn’t make sense to go so fast because you just add the challenge of slowing down to land safely. can’t use Mars’ atmosphere to air brake. If they could figure it out, that would me cool, even if its just used for taking robots and supplies.

@thomasrehbinder7722 13 дней назад

NASA post Apollo can't even find it's own arse without GPS.

@leemiah3583 28 дней назад

This is amazing

@jem5159 29 дней назад

Easy, use both. NASA for most of the personal. Starship for hauling the hardware and other essentials. 😕 maybe?

@quinton3997 28 дней назад

It would be a death sentence for everyone that goes to mars

@timcouillard3499 Месяц назад

What happens if there is a launch miss hap ? 😳🤔😔

@user-ff4su5ji1p 13 дней назад

CIA FBI NSA??? NASA..?? NOT ALONE 😢

@warrenjm9 Месяц назад

NASA has a lot of talk these days, but not much carrythrough. They can talk nuclear thermal rocket all they want. Where IS it? Just like SLS. They launched one. When is the next scheduled? I see Sept 2025, 18 months away. Then we wait another 12 months.

@warrenjm9 Месяц назад

And how are they going to get clearance from the FAA to launch a NUCLEAR FISSION REACTOR into space? And, while it won't need LOX, what WILL it use for reaction mass?

@marinmitu995 Месяц назад

Will the nuclear engine have a static fire? And FAA approval of course !

@babbagebrassworks4278 Месяц назад

New energy source, Sam Altman might be interested in that. Head of Space Force said their Fusion engine is better than the Chinese version.

@warrenjm9 Месяц назад

Haven't seen evidence of either country actually having a viable working model. The concept might be there, but only a concept.

@ioanbota9397 9 дней назад

Realy I like this video so so much its interestyng

@alphatech4966 9 дней назад

Thank you so much!

@JustinStLouis-xz7ut 25 дней назад

When you build on a budget you get crap.

@sp66-know-try-think Месяц назад

The choice of goals and objectives to be solved is more like a pretentious vinaigrette rather than a well-thought-out strategy...

@MrCarRamrod 9 дней назад

Can you imagine the artificial gravity created from the acceleration? You’d have to rotate the craft to slow down halfway to Mars, continuing the artificial gravity. 😅

@MisterJ355 9 дней назад

Like you have any clue what your talking about

@MrCarRamrod 8 дней назад

@@MisterJ355 I thought this was a safe space for fun ideas… my mistake. 🤪

@danieloneill9093 8 дней назад

@@MrCarRamrod Was it a fun idea?

@MrCarRamrod 8 дней назад

@@danieloneill9093 Was it? Was it, fun?

@Flutes2000 Месяц назад

Ha, imaging the screaming and FAA conniption fits if SpaceX and Elon announced that they had this nucellar engine we want to try. Yep, NASA's ball, on the other hand NASA would probably need something as big as Starship to carry the prototypes into space where they could safely turn them on.

@jimparr01Utube Месяц назад

You have failed to highlight the most important difference between chemical and nuclear propulsion. NO WAY (at this time) can nuclear engines lift anything into orbit. But - they can utilize the constant low thrust over days to exceed the performance of any chemical rocket in respect of velocity over an extended period of time when free of gravity's shackles. A moon landing/takeoff may be practical with nuclear propulsion. Probably not Mars and definitely not Earth. But hey. I live to be wrong and hope I am.

@omega7311 Месяц назад

So why not use it for energy production on earth

@mori2740 Месяц назад

Does human body can endure that much acceleration and speed?

@ecoidea100 Месяц назад

I don't know Rick, it looks fake.

@jessicatymczak5852 Месяц назад

No, this is real, was started in the 1960s but then cancelled by Tricky Dick. They made a lot of progress and were two years away from testing a flight worthy engine. Ahh politics, best method our race has come up with to halt scientific and technological advancement

@davidmoor8096 Месяц назад

I would assume the current optimum solution would be a Chemical engine to achieve high Earth Orbit then switch to Nuclear Fission engine for interplanetary travel, then back to Chemical engine for planetary landing. FYI: Nuclear Fusion has been achieved in the Laboratory, but not stable or in a cost effective way, YET! FYI: Nuclear Fusion is INHERENTLY fail safe. Failure of ANYTHING and the reaction stops! No need to do anything. If the required parameters are not met NO reaction. AND very limited waste material. As to extraction of raw materials, lots of water is all that is required AKA the oceans!