Fission reactor options and scaling for powering magnetic fusion thrusters for a manned mars mission

When considering manned Mars missions, four major propulsion categories are often investigated and compared: chemical, nuclear thermal propulsion (NTP), nuclear fusion propulsion, and nuclear electric propulsion (NEP). It is possible that by sticking strictly to these categories, a potential near term solution has been overlooked. By modifying the NEP concept to utilize a fusion thruster instead of a hall thruster or other electric propulsion system it becomes possible to overcome the issues of low thrust associated with NEP as well as the issue of having not yet achieved a self-sustaining fusion reactor. This setup maintains the higher specific impulse(I_SP ) values associated with electric and fusion propulsion systems over that of NTP and chemical systems provided a sufficiently high thrust to weight ratio(^TW ) can be obtained. In order to electrically couple the fission reactor to a fusion thruster, the options for reactor type as well as its scaling ability relative to specific weight is crucial in this system being feasible.