Comparison of Nuclear and Chemical Propulsion Architectures for Human Mars Missions

United States efforts to send a crewed mission to Mars in the near term have become a recent topic of interest as government and commercial exploration efforts have been undertaken for Lunar missions. Traditionally, both Chemical and Nuclear propulsion technologies have been explored for these Mars missions, with both solutions having their own benefits and challenges. This paper explores both chemical propulsion concepts, specifically the SpaceX Starship, and nuclear thermal propulsion concepts for crewed missions to Mars, and to evaluate the required elements to support such a mission. Included in the evaluation are technology development requirements for In-Situ Resource Utilization, surface power generation systems, and surface ascent and descent vehicles.