Introducing a concept of a space rocket designed using nuclear fusion called Sunbird, Pulsar Fusion, a British venture funded by the UK Space Agency, aims to cut the duration of a journey to Mars in half. The Sunbird is designed to rendezvous with spacecraft in orbit, dock with them, and swiftly transport them to their destinations using nuclear fusion. Pulsar’s founder and CEO, Richard Dinan, emphasized that “Conducting fusion on Earth is not very natural. Fusion doesn’t want to work in the atmosphere. Space is a much more logical and reasonable place to do fusion because fusion already wants to happen there.” According to a report by CNN International, the Sunbird is currently in the early stages of construction with significant engineering challenges to overcome, but Pulsar hopes to achieve the first fusion in orbit by 2027. If the rocket becomes operational one day, it could cut the travel time of a potential mission to Mars in half. Dinan envisions the Sunbirds functioning like city bikes at docking stations. “We will launch them into space, and we will have a charging station they can dock with, and then they will meet up with your vessel,” said Dinan. “You switch off your inefficient chemical engines and you use nuclear fusion for a large part of your voyage. Ideally, you have a station near Mars and a station in low Earth orbit, and the Sunbirds just go back and forth.”