Just think of all the new songs REM might be able to write “The United States hopes to send an astronaut to Mars in a nuclear-powered rocket, according to a senior Nasa official. Under the space agency’s ambitious plan, humans would be sent on a two-month journey to Mars in a spaceship travelling at three times the current speed of space travel. President George Bush may announce the plan, named Project Prometheus, at his State of the Union address on January 28, according to a report in the Los Angeles Times. It would commit the US to the exploration of Mars as a priority and herald the development of a nuclear-powered propulsion system. The first voyage could take place as soon as 2010.