It looks like Nuclear Thermal aka NERVA is out of the lab. General Atomics - Electromagnetic Systems is testing hydrogen propellant at 2600 K. h/t Angry Astronaut.
There's a "nonhydrogen environment" test also, which ran up to 3000 K.
The fuel is HALEU, which is lowenough for cislunar operations. NTP means, more Isp; less massratio needed as the propellant gets ejected faster. Heavier actual-cargo can get moved around to better orbits. Of course GA-EMS has pix of Mars everywhere because hype.
As the Astronaut points out, Starship is a chemical system - because it's all supposed to land back on Earth in one piece. What Starship can do is to set up GA-EMS as a tugboat, and supply it.
This suggests that NASA shouldn't shut down where they did the testing, the Marshall Space Flight Center at Alabama.
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