Nuclear powered aircraft

V

vrus

New Member
I watched a documentary on nuclear powered aircraft recently. During the late 50s and early 60s, thare was a race to make a nuclear powered bomber by the USA and USSR. The USAF had a bomber called B-36. This was used to make the first flight with a nuclear reactor on board. It had a range of 13,000 km, meaning it could reach anywhere in the world. The USAF thought that if they could power it with nuclear energy instead of conventional fuel, it could hover around the artic for weeks, even months and then dart into Soviet Union in case of an attack. There were two types of reactors they could use. One was the Direct drive, and the other was the Indirect drive. The direct was simple, but would leak radiation into the atmosphere. The Indirect was complex, but clean. They hasd a choice. Then there was the problem of protecting the crew from radiation. And then, there was Eisenhower, who became president and was suspiscious of this :confused:. So the program was almost closed, when they found out USSR had a nuke powered bomber. So they started it again. Then Kennedy became president and restarted it after criticising Eisenhower to let the USSR get 3-5 years ahead of them. But then Eisenhower let Kennedy in on a secret, that the Russians never had a nuke plane ! :mad3

So the program was aborted again. Finally, they found that in the late 60s, the Soviets had flown a plane that was nuclear powered thinking America had one, despite America aborting it ! :D

But it was the dirty Direct drive they used, combined with poor radiation protection. This caused 3 of the 5 crew to die within a year of flying it. They had flown it 16 times !!!

Some advancement !!!

So, does anybody have any idea of any modern replication of this ?
 
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