Re: Nuclear Powered aircraft

["baumbaug@nosc.mil" <baumbaug@nosc.mil>]

        Group,

        I'm sorry if I'm bringing up a subject that has already been
"thrashed" to death, but I was going through some files (cleaning up my
office so that stuff won't fall on me during an earthquake) and came across
an article published in Air and Space in the April/May edition, 1990.

        The article was on the "Flying Crowbar", (Code named Pluto) a
nuclear-powered bomber which, in 1957, was to be developed and designed by
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (Chance-Bougt had the contract for
the airframe, Masrquardt Aircraft the job of building the ram-jet engine and
Adolf Coors to manufacture ceramic fuel elements [I guess beer cans could't
handle the heat]).  This baby used a nuclear ramjet for power (utilizing
500-megawatt reactor) - whoa!!!.  To quote from the article: This was a
"locomotive-size missile that would travel at near-treetop level at three
times the speed of sound, tossing out hydrogen bombs as it roared overhead".
"Pluto's designers calculated that its shockwave alone might kill people on
the ground" (during operation sound pressure alone was >150 db)  "Then there
was the problem of fallout.  In addition to gamma and neutron radiation from
the unshielded reactor, Pluto's nuclear ramjet would spew fission fragments
out in its exhaust as it flew by".  Just what I'd want to fly over my
home...:-).

        The nuclear ramjet itself, mounted on a flatbed railcar (on Jackass
flats, Nevada, designated Site 401) first roared to life on May 14, 1951.
It only ran for a few seconds and at merely a fraction of its rated poser,
but the test was deemed a complete success.  Later it was ran for five
minutes at full power producing 513 magawatts and the equivalent of over
35,000 pounds of thrust.

        Well, alas and a lack, The Pentagon, Pluto's Sponsor, was having
second thoughts about the project. Military analysts had begun to wonder if
anything so big, hot, noisy, and radioactive could go undetected for long.
The Navy, which has originally expressed an interest in firing the missile
from ships or submarines also began to back away from the project, as had
the Air Force which had already begun deploying ballistic missiles like
Atlas and Titan.  

        Project Pluto was cancelled by the AEC and Air Force in 1964 before
it ever got off the ground.  After all, where do you flight test a nuclear
reactor?

        

        Hope I wasn't too newsy,

        Joel
Joel T. Baumbaugh (baumbaug@nosc.mil)
Naval Research and Development (NRaD)
San Diego, CA., U.S.A.