Nuclear-Powered Aircraft Like Thunderbirds' Fireflash?

Just as we are facing the realities of global warming... what we really need is something nuclear powered to continuously add heat to the atmosphere... great idea!

If these things take to the skies, make sure you are always upwind, and one of them never ever crashes.

Submarines are one thing, nuclear-powered planes are statistically asking for troubles.

Kind Regards....

Just think of the size of this thing, the picture looks like a six engine. So six of the train super crash proof canisters heating solid hydrogen to plasma and expanding it so it cools to where you can mix it with air to not make NOx add a match and it a water powered(making) after burner.

At mach 6 one rivet comes out and a mile later 30 foot of cooled skin is missing going over the wallowa mountains and one of the six six crash proof canisters ablative material is holding up well until it hits a one hundred foot wide seam of magnetite iron ore and granite. The sudden stop on the mountain face a mach 4 exceeds the mechanical properties of the containment creating another super fund site and like that of the Exon Valdez, where it is litigated until the injured parties receive nothing and the lobbyist favors flow like a river.

Possible to make a Nuke powered plane? yes Practical? Not even close yet, especially at mach 6.

Brad

Hello U V

For any enterprise whichmay be a danger to the common man, there is a well-established and historical procedure.

The Army will pick up the pieces, and finish the clean-up job.

As usual, the Lawyers will collect the winnings of all.

Kind Regards....

Mabye it's just me, but I thought there might be a reason why all nuclear powerplants are either submerged in or are built close to a readily available water source...

"...there might be a reason why..."

Yup - cooling. I suppose they could be air-cooled, like a great big VW...

"...there might be a reason why..."

Don't count-out the fact that WATER is one of the best materials going for radiation-absorption...!!!

The "cooling" pools where used fuel rods are held are a water solution of boric acid. Boron is a great neutron absorber, and costs near zilch (remember the 20-mule team ads?). But yes, even w/o boring boron, water itself is a good shield. A whole lot better than air!

Just as a point of historical interest. The B-36 shown in the article WAS NOT NUCLEAR POWERED, as implied in the article. The propulsion was entirely conventional.

This aircraft did however have a fully functional nuclear reactor on board. The significant thing it proved was that a reactor could be built small enough to fit into an aircraft.

Given that this was 50 years ago, I am sure that todays equivalent could be much smaller.

The video shows the "modern" craft flying at 250,000 feet (or 47.3 miles high) There is not a whole lot of air up there, so how do we convert the heat generators (reactors) energy into motion? That could be a challenge.

Sincerely

Bill

Hello Sciesis2,

Hydrogen was estimated to be the highest specific impulse in a nuclear rocket engine. Solid Hydrogen at 72 grams per cc is the most efficient way to pack hydrogen. For a plane it would be the best even over the carbon absorption systems.

The forced air afterburner/ ramjet would be the way to get through the soup of the atmosphere.

This concept may be a good LEO vehicle but as a common carrier I would be nervous every time I seen a contrail. Nuclear subs are lost with some of the highest trained men in the world. 10 foot of salt water will block the radiation of a lost sub reactor. If even 1 in 10 plane wrecks breached containment what a mess.

Brad

Has anyone even made solid H₂ yet? It would take temperatures at damn near absolute 0 to get it to solidify and/or more pressure than I even want to think about.

Bill

Oh yes, I'd have to research but 3 deg above absolute 0 at sea level pressure seems right. I'll dig around. This was from 1999- http://spacedaily.com/news/fuel-99a.html

If you remember the Shuttle replacement X-planes a few years back. One was to be powered by Hydrogen slush a mix of solid and liquid.

General Electric tested a nuclear powered jet engine at its plant in Evandale, OH, U.S.A. back in the late 1940's, early 1950's. It was shut down when the researchers realized that the exhaust from the engine would irradiate and sterilize any territory the plane flew over.

The test building was filled with 80 tons of reinforced concrete. and to this day can not be demolished because of fear of radiation leakage.

Can we build it? Absolutely. Should we build it? Absolutely Not!!

Regards Dragon

true or not, we have little evidence... but it is still a profound idea. it gets my vote.

Good Answer. And quite astute.

Dragon