The Russian federal space agency has revealed that on April 15th, the U.S. and Russia will meet to discuss the development of a future joint nuclear-engine powered rocket project.

The announcement was made by agency director Anatoly Perminov, and the joint project will also include other nations with a “high level of reactor manufacturing technology.” This list could include France, Britain, Germany, China, and Japan. The design is to be completed by 2012, and Russia alone expects to inject around 17 billion rubles ($600 million). The intention is to create a powerful engine that could surpass conventional rocket-fueled engines, and even make a manned mission to Mars plausible.

The inclusion of Japan in this list will raise many an eyebrow, considering the ongoing nuclear disaster that’s befallen the Fukushima nuclear power plant in the aftermath of Japan’s earthquake, and the debate on the future of nuclear power the affair has ignited around the world. But what exactly is a nuclear rocket?

The idea is surprisingly old, in fact. All rockets work, at heart, in exactly the same way: They make use of Newton’s third law of action and reaction to propel themselves forwards by propelling something else in the other direction. In conventionally-fueled rockets, the propellents are a chemical mix that typically burns at high temperatures, resulting in a rapid expansion of gas by-products fired out of the engine bell. Check out the video of the Space Shuttle Main Engines being fired below, demonstrating their astonishing power.