Spacecraft powered by nuclear fission reactors are of limited use to astronomers, the US National Research Council panel has concluded. The report calls into question NASA's multi-billion-dollar Prometheus project, which aims to develop such spacecraft for future missions to the Moon, Mars, and the outer solar system.
Early reactor technology was used in space once by the US in 1965 and a couple of dozen times by the Soviet Union from 1967 to 1988. Now, NASA hopes to improve on the technology, which releases heat by splitting uranium.
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