NASA to develop space nuclear power

This week, NASA announced that it developing a project to put space nuclear power to use by 2013. Using nuclear power with launch vehicles would make transit times substantially shorter when traveling through space. Some people, however, are worried that using nuclear power on a spacecraft could turn in to a disaster if something goes wrong with the launch. The main goal behind the program is to make it much easier and more feasible to send probes to far places in our solar system - like the Kuiper belt and to the moons around Jupiter, Neptune, and Saturn. It is thought that moons like Jupiter's Europa or Saturn's Titan could have some form of life on them. Europa is icy and could have life beneath the surface of some kind, while Titan has a surprisingly dense atmosphere. It sounds like we might find out within a few years.