Craig: nuclear powered spacecraft by the mid twenty thirties. what are we talking about here, john?

Jon: yeah. we're talking about this company rocket roll, which i love. i love the name of it. so they've they've undertaken this eleven year venture to launch the first nuclear powered space tug, and i don't know what a tug is. and i should've looked that up before talking about it. but yeah. so they recently completed their initial phase, and i had to do some digging into what their initial phase actually was, which they outlined a visionary mission concept for nuclear powered space tugs, and investigated the benefits of nuclear electric propulsion compared to traditional propulsion. and that's it. that was the initial phase. so i guess in when it comes to nuclear, maybe that's that's critical, i would assume. right?

Craig: yeah. definitely. and let's go back a step. so a space tug is a special type of spacecraft designed to perform orbital maneuvers, transport payloads, or service satellites in space. so its primary function is to move objects from one orbit to another or perform tasks like satellite repositioning. so, debris removal or even refueling of other spacecraft. so space tugs are like, i guess, like, the tugboats in the marine. you come in close, and then we'll do the stuff in between. space tugs can operate in earth orbit, lunar orbit, or other parts of space depending on their design.

Jon: okay. that makes sense. so i guess my question is why would they be focusing on a space tug as opposed to maybe that's just the next step is to tug, and then the next one is a larger spacecraft. what do you think?

Craig: yeah. you know, for example, transporting satellites from parking orbit to their final destination in orbit is a use case for these things. so you'd you'd throw up a bunch of satellites, especially with starlink and what they're doing, and then you'd have these tugboats go and actually put them in orbit. they wouldn't necessarily you know, from, like, let's just say, an egg carton of satellites, and they just pick them up and drop them somewhere. getting rid of debris, orbital servicing, like, refueling, repairing, moving stuff around. like, you'd probably like, if we had these, we'd probably not have had our astronauts stuck forever because we could have probably moved them from one place to another. right? and yeah. so yeah. and interplanetary missions, assisting spacecraft in reaching destination beyond earth's orbit. so i could see these being, empowered around mars and then, what they're trying to do with mars where people come in and drop payloads, and now you have these things which would move stuff around to things that will take stuff to the planet and then, you know, stuff from the planet that'll be reloaded on these ships to go back to earth. so the ships actually never actually have to go into, the atmosphere on either side.

Jon: no. i yeah. and i get that. but i guess why is all this money being thrown into these things as opposed to, like, spacecraft that can carry people or spacecraft that can travel that can carry people and travel to mars. right? because if you have a nuclear spacecraft, you've got a reduced travel time. you've got a whole bunch of efficiencies and and things where having people in space with a nuclear spacecraft, would make the most sense. so i i guess this is my ignorance when it comes to space, space business. right?

Craig: yeah. so, basically, nasa, alongside spacex and blue origin, is looking at a hybrid of nuclear propulsion, as a legit way to boost our space travel. so, you know, the concept is, you know, we have very unique vehicle space vehicles that do very specific things. mhmm. we need nuclear run these indefinitely because they can't stop, deploy solar power, arrays, and then take them back and then do work. like, they need to be able to con function, continuously. i think that the combination is going to happen, for what you're saying. the problem is nuclear power right now is not enough to get people off the planet. it's not necessarily enough to get to the speeds we need to get from, earth's atmosphere to mars, but it is enough to move stuff from those things and move around and keep these, in space orbital things so that the spaceships that travel, from earth to our orbiting stations that drop stuff off, that's all they do. and then the spaceships that travel between earth and mars, that's all they do. and the point, i guess, is making them safe, making them reliable because now we can power these things indefinitely versus all these other things that have to reuse fuel. and if we have to use the same types of ships, we're reusing fuel, we're reusing resources. so it's just a way of kinda tackling a problem and, dealing with it at a very efficient level, i guess. and the the nuclear power can be used for those other, things as well, like we're talking about the hybrids.

Jon: oh, okay. yeah. and there's other, countries and other organizations working. i know darpa. they've contracted thank god they've contracted lockheed martin and not boeing, to develop a nuclear powered spacecraft. they're aiming for an in space demo by twenty twenty seven, apparently.

Craig: wow.

Jon: and then russia apparently has announced plans. we'll have a nuclear powered spacecraft for its first mission by twenty thirty. and china, they're making progress on a one apparently, can never trust anything out of china, on a one point five megawatt reactor design that can be folded for launch and unfurled in space.

Craig: yeah. i've seen those, and those look pretty cool. and some of the reasons why you know, we're talking not just about what we were talking about the, tugboats, but we're also talking about the hybrid propulsion. so nuclear propulsion is a game changer in some of these things because for starters, it could, you know, travel much faster than traditional rockets between. so it could cut the travel time to mars from about six months to just weeks potentially because of, it could do constant thrust

Jon: yeah.

Craig: which you couldn't with the propellant and stuff. like, this is the whole yeah. you can constantly accelerate, the whole time, so you can cut speed down, the travel down. so, overall, the combination looks pretty interesting. but there are challenges keeping the public on board with nuclear strategy. we've talked about that. void fears are stemming from glowing green mutants is a task that's easier said than done. you know, if we've got nuclear powered satellites running around everywhere, they do crash to the ground. what are the concerns around all of that stuff?

Jon: yeah.

Craig: you know? and we're talk yeah. go ahead.

Jon: no. no. go ahead. yeah.

Craig: we're talking about regulations. right? like, huge companies like amazon and, meta and whatnot are getting called up in all these regulations around whether they can or cannot use these, micronuclear stations or not. and same thing with this stuff in space. i'm sure there's gonna be all sorts of regulations around that. so, you know, as we dreamed setting foot on other planets, we must, you know, think about are we ready for long term human presence in the cosmos. with each new advancement, we're venturing closer to turning fantasy into reality, but it's not just about technology. it's about our international collaboration like you're saying. picture country sharing knowledges and resource like friendly neighbors, lending each other lawnmowers, except, you know, it's expertise on nuclear propulsion. we're really not there yet. so it kinda scares me a little bit if we're all doing our own nuclear powered space race.

Jon: yeah. yeah. and you know what, though? this just goes to to the to the larger point that we're talking about is is, like, all of these different companies going after nuclear, developing nuclear, harnessing nuclear. there i think i think we're on a precipice now of nuclear becoming a norm, in society.

Craig: we're definitely getting there. it seems to be right, in the zeitgeist way more. and we're talking about a lot more casual companies are talking about. we see several different private companies making mobile nuclear reactors for all sorts of reasons. we see the military contract. we see the space stuff, and it's amazing. i was like, okay. great. we're doing all these things. this is fantastic. but, you know, the kicker around where this stuff gets particular interesting, where you're like, why are we spending all this money in particular?

Jon: mhmm.

Craig: where this gets really interesting is asteroid mining. you know? the possibility of, yeah, of harvesting resource from asteroids, you know, is on the rise, and people are saying, like, if we just get one asteroid, it could mean, more than all the riches and all the gold mines and all this stuff depending on what's in it. you're talking about mining, stuff on the moon, helium three, for example, because it's valuable or what have you. these types of things allow for that to happen where you really couldn't do that before. so the possibility of harvesting these resources of asteroids aren't as far away now because they've all talked about it and getting new materials to bring back to earth. so, you know, are we gonna have a new gold at some point in the future that is space gold?

Jon: yeah. well, i know that, nasa is trying to capture this ten trillion dollar asteroid, and they're very close to capturing it or something like that. i was reading about that this week, i think. did you see that?

Craig: i saw they were working on it. i haven't seen what the status is. i saw a few weeks ago they were talking about it and working on it. so i don't know yeah. if it's passed, if they've caught it. i don't know anything about that. but i know that they've been talking about mining asteroids and that it's the next, you know, huge, mineral front. and once you can start building these, tugs that can actually pick up the stuff and move back forth, this becomes a major reality.

Jon: yeah.

Craig: so, as we wrap up this cosmic journey, let's reflect. with nuclear powered spacecraft on the brink of becoming a reality, how soon do you think we might see humans popping out of their ships on mars or saturn's moons? is elon musk's twenty year strategy of, people being on mars a reality? are we ready for the responsibility of traversing the galaxy, or are we just about to play interstellar hitchhiker? what are your thoughts, predictions, and any wild ideas you have about space exploration with us? send it on drop us a comment. leave us a message on social.