Nuclear thermal propulsion ship
An illustration of a spacecraft for deep space missions powered by nuclear thermal propulsion. Congress has added funding to NASA appropriations bills to support development of the technology. Credit: NASA/Marshall

WASHINGTON — NASA needs to pursue “aggressive” development of space nuclear propulsion technologies if the agency wants to use them for human missions to Mars in the next two decades, a report by a National Academies committee concluded.

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Jeff Foust writes about space policy, commercial space, and related topics for SpaceNews. He earned a Ph.D. in planetary sciences from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a bachelor’s degree with honors in geophysics and planetary science...