Gentlefolk, The reactor for a nuclear powered aircraft still sits cooling down out in the barrens Idaho National Engineer Laboratory (INEL; it's vast, mostly unpopulated, and is where, among other things, the damaged core of the Three-mile Island plant came to rest).
I was told that what killed the project was the inability to find a mass-effective solution to backscatter of thermal neutrons. They last for about 20 minutes, they get out in the exhaust, and bounce back off the atmosphere into the cockpit. The same problem applies to nuclear powered launch vehicles. The original Walt Disney Tomorrowland moon rocket was designed as a nuke; but with a chemical boost engine; the idea was to pop it out of the atmosphere before running propellant through the reactor. IMHO, now that there are practical ways of transferring nuclear-generated energy (lasers, microwaves, mass beams) from where it is generated to where it is needed, I think the best place for nuclear reactors is behind a lot of mass--on the ground or in a nice stable orbit. Deep space auxilliary power, of course, is another matter. --Best, Gerald _______________________________________________ ERPS-list mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.erps.org/mailman/listinfo/erps-list
