A piece of NASA art illustrating a lunar-bound craft equipped with three relatively small nuclear thermal rockets. The payload is a lunar lander, similar in appearance to the “First Lunar Outpost” landers of the early 1990s, dating the art. To my eye this looks a bit dubious from the standpoint of nuking the crew… the reactors aren’t that far from them, what with the rather short hydrogen tank. *Perhaps* this was intended to be sent to lunar orbit unmanned, there to be met by a crew sent via chemical rockets. For lunar missions the utility of nuclear rockets would not be in getting payloads to the destination sooner; three days just isn’t that long, really. The advantage would be in sending *massive* payloads. So a small manned capsule sent chemically and a big heavily loaded lander sent via nukes might well make considerable sense.
