Is it necessary for spaceships to include reverse thrusters for deceleration in space?

Set in the not so distant future, space travel becomes commonplace but is limited within the heliosphere. I'm thinking since it is fuel efficient and more economical to use gravity assist to slow down the speed of the spaceship would reverse thrusters become obsolete? I think maybe adding rocket boosters at the front of the spaceship is dangerous especially for nuclear explosion type of propulsion rocket and it is costly to add lots of electromagnetic rings all over the body of the spaceship just to direct the compressed plasma and feed it to the reactors to achieve fusion for thrust. We need to cool and barricade the thrusters and the crew which is expected to add even more mass, so is the reverse thrusters obsolete?

posted almost 5 years ago

user6760‭

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