The United States Space Nuclear Propulsion Office (SNPO) was created in 1961 in response to NASA Marshall Space Flight Center's desire to explore the use of nuclear thermal rockets created by Project Rover in NASA space exploration activities. Because Project Rover fell under the aegis of the Atomic Energy Commission, a way had to be found for NASA and the AEC to share a large, expensive, classified program; specifically, Los Alamos was developing technology for NASA to use.