The U.S. is developing a nuclear-powered spaceship designed by technology critical to deep-space exploration and national security. NASA’s administrator spoke about the Space Reactor-1 Freedom program in an exclusive video interview with Threat Status at this week’s Space Symposium 2026 conference in Colorado. 

Mr. Isaacman described the electric propulsion spacecraft as “the first-of-its-kind nuclear-powered interplanetary spacecraft,” framing its development not as an option, but as a necessity for America to dominate the 21st-century space race. The technologies involved, he said, are critical to establishing a permanent base on the moon and to possible human travel to Mars.

A 2028 timeline calls for launching the SR-1 Freedom to Mars with a full payload of what NASA describes as “mass transport in deep space,” pushing even farther into the solar system, beyond Jupiter. “Solar power is 4% [effective] as you go past Jupiter,” Mr. Isaacman said. “You’re going to need nuclear power.”

North Korea is upgrading its nuclear facilities as the U.S. and Israel wage war on Iran to keep it from developing its own nuclear weapons. Asia Editor Andrew Salmon examines the situation in a dispatch from South Korea, where a top United Nations atomic official said this week there has been a “rapid increase” in operations at the North’s Yongbyon reactor, as well as an “activation of other facilities.”

“All of them point to a very serious increase in the capability of [North Korea] in the area of nuclear weapons production, which is estimated at a few dozen warheads,” said Rafael Mariano Grossi, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency. The Yongbyon complex, in northwestern North Korea, has generated spent plutonium as a fissile material, but North Korea is also enriching uranium, which is considered more effective for weaponization.

The only country to withdraw from the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Treaty, North Korea has doubled down on its nuclear efforts, with its congress in March codifying Pyongyang’s status as a permanent nuclear-armed state with plans to expand and modernize its nuclear capabilities.

The U.S. military has used AI in active combat operations against Iran, and the race is now on to build the infrastructure needed to protect AI while forward deployed in conflict.

The data centers relied upon by AI systems are becoming a new, high-value target in modern warfare. Potential attacks are dynamic and can involve precision missile strikes or cyberwarfare designed to cripple a center’s information flows. 

The U.S. defense technology industry is responding. The San Francisco-based AI hardware company Armada has developed a deployable, fully functional data center called the “Galleon.” The company has already fielded one of the centers with the Navy, acting as an intelligence server onboard a warship.

China is a strategic partner of Iran and has reacted harshly to the American military blockade of Iranian shipping, calling the Trump administration’s escalation of the war “dangerous and irresponsible.” A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said this week that the blockade will increase confrontation, escalate tensions and jeopardize ships.

The blockade is expected to further diminish China’s access to foreign oil imports following the loss of access to Venezuelan oil earlier this year. China is the biggest buyer of the oil that flows through the Strait of Hormuz, with 38% of all shipments through the choke point going to China. 

Concerns are high in U.S. intelligence circles about Chinese support for Iran. Mr. Trump says Chinese President Xi Jinping told him Beijing won’t send weapons. Yet Tehran reportedly acquired a spy satellite from China to monitor U.S. bases in the Middle East. Beijing has denied sending arms. The foreign ministry says reports of pending transfers are “fabricated.”

NASA’s Artemis II crew, recently returned to Earth from a 10-day swing around the moon, “checked the obligatory boxes of identity inclusivity: experience in space, military service and scientific expertise,” writes Frank Perley, a former senior editor and editorial opinion writer for The Washington Times.

“When the planet’s premier space agency launches teams to establish humanity’s first colonies on distant planets, though, the red, white and blue emblazoned on the rocket’s nose cone should be matched by quintessentially American values tattooed on their hearts: faith, family and freedom,” Mr. Perley writes in The Times.

“A lust for freedom, coupled with the daring desire to spurn the beaten path, must animate NASA’s brightest when they challenge an environment bereft of the familiar blessings of life on Earth,” he writes. “The well-worn cliche of thinking ‘outside the box’ is due for an extreme makeover by adventurers who will do their thinking ‘outside the biosphere.’”

• April 16 — 41st Space Symposium for Government, Military and Industry Leadership, Space Foundation

• April 17 — British Ambassador to the U.S. Christian Turner on Euro-Atlantic Security and the Middle East, Atlantic Council

• April 20 — Shared Risk, Shared Responsibility: Lessons from Canada on Allied Burden-Sharing in Global WMD Threat Reduction, Stimson Center

• April 21 — Profiting from Chaos? Russia’s Energy Windfall from a Fragmented Middle East, Chatham House

• April 22 — Pakistan at the Center: A Year of Change at Home and Abroad for Islamabad, Stimson Center

• April 23 — The New India Conference: India’s Importance to American Interests, Hudson Institute 

• April 27 — Power, Religion and Ideology in North Korea, Brookings Institution