NASA Fires Up Powerful Lithium-Fed Thruster for Trips to Mars

[OKIsItJustMe]

6. Check out the NASA paper I added to the bottom of the reply

Last edited Sat May 16, 2026, 02:23 PM - Edit history (2)

As well as this one linked to in the OP. https://alfven.princeton.edu/publications/pdf/polk-iepc-2024.pdf

I gave you the wrong impression by citing the NERVA engine, which, as you say, used a nuclear reactor to heat hydrogen which was then used as a propellant. My (unclear) point was that nuclear-powered engines have been being researched by NASA (and its predecessors) since the mid-50’s.

In the case of the “MPD thruster,” the hydrogen is being used as a plasma.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetoplasmadynamic_thruster

Psyche uses xenon gas in its ion thrusters.


I read once that Gene Roddenberry rejected the use of ion thrusters for the Enterprise because they were too slow. (In the original series, they occasionally encountered more primitive spaceships which used them — as I recall Khan’s Botany Bay used ion thrusters.)