+"New Mexico United States USA" +1968 stock footage and images

Nuclear reactors designed and developed to power spacecraft after numerous tests.

Los Alamos Atomic Energy Commission Scientific Laboratory in New Mexico and mountains in the background. Scientists work with diagrams of nuclear reactors. Different equipment and nuclear rocket designs. Prototype of Nuclear reactor is made. Technicians work with KIWI experimental reactors. Towers and buildings in desert. KIWI reactor is checked in nuclear assembly. Reactor is taken to the testing area on a special rail car. Man works at a remote station to control the car. Liquid hydrogen is pumped into the reactor on rail car from near by storage tanks. Reactor tested on test stand shows flaming torch. Reactor transported for disassembly and inspection on car by remote control. Men use remote control manipulators for inspection. Exhaust gas from other reactor on test stand. Men work on diagrams. Narrator discusses next step as the NERVA program (Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Applications), a combined government and private industry (Aerojet and Westinghouse) effort headed by the Space Nuclear Propulsion Office (SNPO). Animated nuclear thermal rocket shown with NERVA technology ( Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Application), given the letter designation NRX.