I guess the missile defense cold war is being extended
to the Moon and beyond. Apparently it will use
a small nuclear power device to heat chemical
propellants, a hybrid of sorts.

INVESTING IN SPACE

DARPA awards nuclear spacecraft contracts to Lockheed Martin,
Bezos’ Blue Origin and General Atomics

PUBLISHED MON, APR 12 2021

The Pentagon’s DARPA awarded contracts to General Atomics,
Lockheed Martin and Jeff Bezos’ space venture Blue Origin
under the agency’s DRACO (Demonstration Rocket for Agile
Cislunar Operations) program.

DARPA says a nuclear powered spacecraft has the potential
to achieve both the high power of an chemical-based
propulsion system and the high efficiency of an
electrical-powered system.

“This combination would give a DRACO spacecraft greater agility
to implement the Department of Defense’s core tenet of rapid
maneuver in cislunar space (between the Earth and moon),”
DARPA said.

“Nuclear thermal propulsion is a transformative technology
that will dramatically change the way spacecraft will
operate, increasing agility and allowing more efficient
travel to Mars and beyond in far less time than conventional
propulsion systems,”

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/12/darpa-nuclear-spacecraft-lockheed-bezos-blue-origin-general-atomics.html

GENERAL ATOMICS
Space Nuclear

Nuclear Thermal Propulsion

Since the 1950's, GA-EMS has been unlocking the possibilities
of Space Nuclear Thermal Propulsion (NTP). GA-EMS' NTP reactor
concept leverages advancements in modern nuclear materials
and manufacturing methods with valuable experience from the
company's involvement on NASA Atomic Energy Commission (AEC)
Project Rover in the 1960s; one of the first programs to
demonstrate the feasibility of space-based NTP. GA
fabricated approximately 6 metric tons of the nuclear fuel
kernels for the project. In 1965, the company was also
directly involved in nuclear fuel testing and characterization
for the SNAP-10A reactor, the only U.S. nuclear power reactor
launched into space.

Now, GA-EMS' NTP design proposes new features that address
issues observed in historical designs, such as fuel element
corrosion, and achieves a compact core using High-Assay
Low-Enriched Uranium (HALEU) instead of High-Enriched Uranium (HEU).
GA-EMS' advancements in state-of-the-art nuclear fuel and
high temperature ceramic matrix composite materials are
key components to the NTP design to create a highly efficient
and exceptionally safe propulsion system. Combined with
exceptional in-house capabilities to fabricate these
components and others, GA-EMS is enabling the future of
space exploration.
https://www.ga.com/space-systems/space-nuclear

BIG LIE From Wiki - "The German expression was coined by Adolf Hitler
when he dictated his 1925 book Mein Kampf, to describe the use of a lie
so *colossal* that no one would believe that someone "could have the
impudence to distort the truth so infamously."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_lie