I'd be curious to see a side by side comparison. It might make sense to use Starship for humans and initial supplies and a nuclear thermal design for much heavier loads that would require many back and forth runs by SpaceX Starship rockets.
Or maybe the reverse is true.
Chemical rockets (trad est): 8-9 months to Mars
Chemical rockets (SpaceX est) : 6 months to Mars
NERVA nuclear thermal rockets (NASA est): 3-4 months to Mars
If compressing the time to Mars becomes the more important mission parameter due concerns over radiation, 0-gravity effects on humans or just something going wrong. Then perhaps Nuclear Thermal are the only choice for people and chemical rocket makes sense for supplies.
I'd love to see any research people have done comparing these two options and seeing which one works best.
Or maybe the reverse is true.
Chemical rockets (trad est): 8-9 months to Mars Chemical rockets (SpaceX est) : 6 months to Mars NERVA nuclear thermal rockets (NASA est): 3-4 months to Mars
If compressing the time to Mars becomes the more important mission parameter due concerns over radiation, 0-gravity effects on humans or just something going wrong. Then perhaps Nuclear Thermal are the only choice for people and chemical rocket makes sense for supplies.
I'd love to see any research people have done comparing these two options and seeing which one works best.