ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
Explore the many uses for nuclear science and its impact on energy, the environment, healthcare, food, and more.
Division Spotlight
Aerospace Nuclear Science & Technology
Organized to promote the advancement of knowledge in the use of nuclear science and technologies in the aerospace application. Specialized nuclear-based technologies and applications are needed to advance the state-of-the-art in aerospace design, engineering and operations to explore planetary bodies in our solar system and beyond, plus enhance the safety of air travel, especially high speed air travel. Areas of interest will include but are not limited to the creation of nuclear-based power and propulsion systems, multifunctional materials to protect humans and electronic components from atmospheric, space, and nuclear power system radiation, human factor strategies for the safety and reliable operation of nuclear power and propulsion plants by non-specialized personnel and more.
Meeting Spotlight
2024 ANS Annual Conference
June 16–19, 2024
Las Vegas, NV|Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino
Standards Program
The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
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Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Wyoming as a hub for new nuclear manufacturing and microreactor deployment?
A 60-year-old Wyoming industrial machinery company is partnering with nuclear innovator BWX Technologies to deploy 50-megawatt microreactors in America’s heartland over the coming years to provide carbon-free heat and power for industrial users.
R. J. Bohl, F. P. Durham, W. L. Kirk
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 20 | Number 4 | December 1991 | Pages 698-709
Space Nuclear Power/Propulsion | doi.org/10.13182/FST91-A11946922
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The use of atomic energy for rocket propulsion was proposed long before nuclear fission was discovered in 1939. As early as 1906, Robert Goddard published papers describing the energy inherent in a unit mass of radium. Scientists and engineers were neither able to efficiently direct the energy released to produce thrust nor produce more energy by spontaneous disintegrations in radium during that time period. Gaetano Arturo Crocco, in 1923, suggested directing radium's alpha particles using a magnetic field to produce thrust. In 1924, Soviet scientist K. E. Tsiolkowski, decided that it was impractical to use radium for rocket propulsion for the same reasons Goddard had deduced 18 years earlier, i.e., the energy release is low and slow and the cost is high.