NASA officials say that the country will need nuclear-powered spacecraft if it wants to beat China in sending humans to Mars. The officials testified at a House Science, Space, and Tech subcommittee hearing, as per the United Press International.
They urged lawmakers to invest resources for developing nuclear-powered rockets that would enable humans to reach Mars in just 3-4 months, which is half the time a traditional rocket would take.
China might win the race to Mars
“Our strategic competitors, including China, are indeed aggressively investing in a wide range of space technologies, including nuclear power and propulsion to fulfill their ambitions for sustained human lunar presence, as well as Martian and deep space science missions,” NASA senior adviser for Budget and Finance Bhavya Lal said, adding that the “United States needs to move at a fast pace to stay competitive and to remain a leader in the global space community.”
This proposal comes after reports of China testing a hypersonic nuclear-powered missile came out, surprising US officials. However, China quickly denied the claims, some still believe it could be a “Sputnik moment” because US intelligence had underestimated the country’s progress.
The space agency has stated that they want to send astronauts to the Red Planet by 2033. However, Dr. Roget Myer, co-chair of the Committee on Space Nuclear Propulsion Technologies at the Academies of Sciences, derailed those plans by saying that sending humans to Mars is “likely unobtainable by 2033.” Meanwhile, Chinese officials are aiming to send taikonauts to Mars by 2033, reports Reuters.
China’s growing space ambitions
Besides, China might pull off something no country has until now. Dr. Zaza Osmanov, an associate physics professor at the Free University of Tbilisi believes a new radio telescope in China could detect massive swarms of self-replicating alien robots before they attack our planet.
He recently published a preprint paper that suggests how China’s new Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST) might be able to detect swarms of hypothetical extraterrestrial devices called Von Neumann probes. It will be interesting to see what lies ahead.
