NERVA

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Marcus Cocceius Nerva was also the name of a Roman emperor

Diagram of the NERVA nuclear rocket engine.

NERVA is an acronym for Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Application. It was a Nuclear thermal rocket. The NERVA rocket engine was based on Kiwi nuclear reactor technology. In the early 1960s NASA planned to use NERVA to power a RIFT (Reactor-In-Flight-Test) nuclear stage to be launched in the early 1970s. The completed NERVA would be a nuclear powered upper stage for the Saturn V, which would allow the upgraded Saturn to launch interplanetary payloads. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center had the development responsibility for the rocket stage.

From the beginning the program had a number of problems. It was very expensive. It never held much public support, owing to the growing anti-nuclear lobby in the United States in the early 1970s, there were environmental concerns as the radioactive exhaust from test-firings were not contained in any way, and the test engines themselves never managed to produce more than 40% of their theoretical thrust, which made them far less powerful than contemporary conventional rocket engines. Even so, the program was thought to have great potential once the initial problems were worked out. Alas, this was not to be.

The program was cancelled in 1972.