Nuclear power plants in aircraft....

Message
Author
User avatar
TheGreenGoblin
Chief Pilot
Chief Pilot
Posts: 17596
Joined: Thu Aug 08, 2019 11:02 pm
Location: With the Water People near Trappist-1

Nuclear power plants in aircraft....

#1 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Mon Oct 26, 2020 2:50 pm


htre3.jpeg
htre3.jpeg (34 KiB) Viewed 5103 times
Aircraft nuclear propulsion
Though you remain
Convinced
"To be alive
You must have somewhere
To go
Your destination remains
Elusive."

User avatar
TheGreenGoblin
Chief Pilot
Chief Pilot
Posts: 17596
Joined: Thu Aug 08, 2019 11:02 pm
Location: With the Water People near Trappist-1

Re: Nuclear power plants in aircraft....

#2 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Mon Oct 26, 2020 3:02 pm

http://www.megazone.org/ANP/tech.shtml
Raymond Clare Briant, who was then the director of the ANP Project stated that "manned nuclear aircraft pose the most difficult engineering development job yet attempted within this century."
Nuclear rocket engines seemed more likely...


Though you remain
Convinced
"To be alive
You must have somewhere
To go
Your destination remains
Elusive."

User avatar
ian16th
Chief Pilot
Chief Pilot
Posts: 10029
Joined: Fri Aug 28, 2015 9:35 am
Location: KZN South Coast with the bananas
Gender:
Age: 87

Re: Nuclear power plants in aircraft....

#3 Post by ian16th » Mon Oct 26, 2020 4:14 pm

Didn't some Septic lot look at using the Saro Princess?
Cynicism improves with age

User avatar
G~Man
Capt
Capt
Posts: 1085
Joined: Sun Aug 23, 2015 4:16 pm
Location: California on a fire or a sailboat somewhere.
Gender:
Age: 60

Re: Nuclear power plants in aircraft....

#4 Post by G~Man » Mon Oct 26, 2020 4:28 pm

About as much understanding as this classic:

B-) Life may not be the party you hoped for, but while you're here, you may as well dance. B-)

User avatar
TheGreenGoblin
Chief Pilot
Chief Pilot
Posts: 17596
Joined: Thu Aug 08, 2019 11:02 pm
Location: With the Water People near Trappist-1

Re: Nuclear power plants in aircraft....

#5 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Mon Oct 26, 2020 4:45 pm

G~Man wrote:
Mon Oct 26, 2020 4:28 pm
About as much understanding as this classic:
Just wait until you have grappled with the fascinating facts associated with the Katabatic Confabulator! =))
Though you remain
Convinced
"To be alive
You must have somewhere
To go
Your destination remains
Elusive."

k3k3
Capt
Capt
Posts: 1492
Joined: Thu Sep 10, 2015 9:44 pm
Location: In the Transit Lounge

Re: Nuclear power plants in aircraft....

#6 Post by k3k3 » Tue Oct 27, 2020 10:48 am

ian16th wrote:
Mon Oct 26, 2020 4:14 pm
Didn't some Septic lot look at using the Saro Princess?
They did, but the aircraft had corroded so much while sitting idle they were beyond saving.

Hughie Green had a campaign to save one as a museum exhibit to no avail.

Boac
Chief Pilot
Chief Pilot
Posts: 17209
Joined: Fri Aug 28, 2015 5:12 pm
Location: Here

Re: Nuclear power plants in aircraft....

#7 Post by Boac » Tue Oct 27, 2020 11:27 am

Fascinating stuff, TGG - where are we now?

User avatar
TheGreenGoblin
Chief Pilot
Chief Pilot
Posts: 17596
Joined: Thu Aug 08, 2019 11:02 pm
Location: With the Water People near Trappist-1

Re: Nuclear power plants in aircraft....

#8 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Tue Oct 27, 2020 1:06 pm

Boac wrote:
Tue Oct 27, 2020 11:27 am
Fascinating stuff, TGG - where are we now?
It is fascinating isn't it. Kennedy bought the initial jet engine programme to a halt (after about 1 billion 1960's dollars had been spent). A single working engine was actually tested on a much modified Convair B-36 Peacemaker but it was clear that a flying nuclear reactor was a potential flying disaster area in the case of an accident, and not least because the amount of shielding required to protect the pilots made the the whole aircraft design enormously heavy and the whole idea was quietly put to bed.
Though you remain
Convinced
"To be alive
You must have somewhere
To go
Your destination remains
Elusive."

Boac
Chief Pilot
Chief Pilot
Posts: 17209
Joined: Fri Aug 28, 2015 5:12 pm
Location: Here

Re: Nuclear power plants in aircraft....

#9 Post by Boac » Tue Oct 27, 2020 1:18 pm

Yes, I can see the aircraft system is probably a non-starter. I was really wondering about the space side.

User avatar
Undried Plum
Chief Pilot
Chief Pilot
Posts: 7308
Joined: Sun Jul 22, 2018 8:45 pm
Location: 56°N 4°W

Re: Nuclear power plants in aircraft....

#10 Post by Undried Plum » Tue Oct 27, 2020 1:54 pm

A Billion Dollar boondoggle banjaxed by JFK. :-?

The list of suspects just keeps on getting longer! B-)


User avatar
TheGreenGoblin
Chief Pilot
Chief Pilot
Posts: 17596
Joined: Thu Aug 08, 2019 11:02 pm
Location: With the Water People near Trappist-1

Re: Nuclear power plants in aircraft....

#11 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Thu Oct 29, 2020 4:42 am

Boac wrote:
Tue Oct 27, 2020 1:18 pm
Yes, I can see the aircraft system is probably a non-starter. I was really wondering about the space side.
The space side is a lot more hopeful.

Project Orion

Nuclear Plasma Pulsed Propulsion

Nuclear Thermal Rockets
Though you remain
Convinced
"To be alive
You must have somewhere
To go
Your destination remains
Elusive."

User avatar
TheGreenGoblin
Chief Pilot
Chief Pilot
Posts: 17596
Joined: Thu Aug 08, 2019 11:02 pm
Location: With the Water People near Trappist-1

Re: Nuclear power plants in aircraft....

#12 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Thu Oct 29, 2020 4:42 am

and then there is also antimatter... (notwithstanding the fact that the cost of producing even a gram of antimatter would be literally astronomical)...

https://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/ne ... eship.html
Though you remain
Convinced
"To be alive
You must have somewhere
To go
Your destination remains
Elusive."

User avatar
TheGreenGoblin
Chief Pilot
Chief Pilot
Posts: 17596
Joined: Thu Aug 08, 2019 11:02 pm
Location: With the Water People near Trappist-1

Re: Nuclear power plants in aircraft....

#13 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Thu Oct 29, 2020 12:11 pm

TheGreenGoblin wrote:
Thu Oct 29, 2020 4:42 am
and then there is also antimatter... (notwithstanding the fact that the cost of producing even a gram of antimatter would be literally astronomical)...

https://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/ne ... eship.html
A bit more on "storing" anti-matter from WIkipedia...
Antimatter cannot be stored in a container made of ordinary matter because antimatter reacts with any matter it touches, annihilating itself and an equal amount of the container. Antimatter in the form of charged particles can be contained by a combination of electric and magnetic fields, in a device called a Penning trap. This device cannot, however, contain antimatter that consists of uncharged particles, for which atomic traps are used. In particular, such a trap may use the dipole moment (electric or magnetic) of the trapped particles. At high vacuum, the matter or antimatter particles can be trapped and cooled with slightly off-resonant laser radiation using a magneto-optical trap or magnetic trap. Small particles can also be suspended with optical tweezers, using a highly focused laser beam.

In 2011, CERN scientists were able to preserve antihydrogen for approximately 17 minutes. The record for storing antiparticles is currently held by the TRAP experiment at CERN: antiprotons were kept in a Penning trap for 405 days. A proposal was made in 2018, to develop containment technology advanced enough to contain a billion anti-protons in a portable device to be driven to another lab for further experimentation.

Cost
Scientists claim that antimatter is the costliest material to make. In 2006, Gerald Smith estimated $250 million could produce 10 milligrams of positrons[76] (equivalent to $25 billion per gram); in 1999, NASA gave a figure of $62.5 trillion per gram of antihydrogen. This is because production is difficult (only very few antiprotons are produced in reactions in particle accelerators) and because there is higher demand for other uses of particle accelerators. According to CERN, it has cost a few hundred million Swiss francs to produce about 1 billionth of a gram (the amount used so far for particle/antiparticle collisions).In comparison, to produce the first atomic weapon, the cost of the Manhattan Project was estimated at $23 billion with inflation during 2007.

Several studies funded by the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts are exploring whether it might be possible to use magnetic scoops to collect the antimatter that occurs naturally in the Van Allen belt of the Earth, and ultimately, the belts of gas giants, like Jupiter, hopefully at a lower cost per gram.
https://home.cern/science/physics/antim ... tihydrogen
Though you remain
Convinced
"To be alive
You must have somewhere
To go
Your destination remains
Elusive."

Karearea
Chief Pilot
Chief Pilot
Posts: 4746
Joined: Thu Sep 10, 2015 5:47 am
Location: The South Island, New Zealand

Re: Nuclear power plants in aircraft....

#14 Post by Karearea » Fri Oct 30, 2020 1:22 am

No good will come of muckin' abaht wiv anti-matter, mark my words...

Reminds me of a science-fiction story I read, The Ifth of Oofth—by Walter Tevis - 8 pages, can be read at this link:

http://johnesimpson.com/pdf/Ifth_of_oof ... rtevis.pdf
And with the morn, those angel faces smile...

User avatar
llondel
Chief Pilot
Chief Pilot
Posts: 5913
Joined: Wed Oct 03, 2018 3:17 am
Location: San Jose

Re: Nuclear power plants in aircraft....

#15 Post by llondel » Fri Oct 30, 2020 3:11 am

Now where did I put my stock of dilithium crystals?

User avatar
TheGreenGoblin
Chief Pilot
Chief Pilot
Posts: 17596
Joined: Thu Aug 08, 2019 11:02 pm
Location: With the Water People near Trappist-1

Re: Nuclear power plants in aircraft....

#16 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Fri Oct 30, 2020 10:08 pm

Karearea wrote:
Fri Oct 30, 2020 1:22 am
No good will come of muckin' abaht wiv anti-matter, mark my words...

Reminds me of a science-fiction story I read, The Ifth of Oofth—by Walter Tevis - 8 pages, can be read at this link:

http://johnesimpson.com/pdf/Ifth_of_oof ... rtevis.pdf
Tesseracts and the like are a lot of fun but when it comes to monkeying around with multiple dimensions or black holes or antimatter one must keep off the sloe gin and avoid stabbing anything with red hot pokers! =))

240px-8-cell-orig.gif
240px-8-cell-orig.gif (605.76 KiB) Viewed 4961 times

One good science fiction story deserves another... By Robert Heinlein.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source= ... eTtS8CwBIy


Though you remain
Convinced
"To be alive
You must have somewhere
To go
Your destination remains
Elusive."

Karearea
Chief Pilot
Chief Pilot
Posts: 4746
Joined: Thu Sep 10, 2015 5:47 am
Location: The South Island, New Zealand

Re: Nuclear power plants in aircraft....

#17 Post by Karearea » Fri Oct 30, 2020 11:22 pm

^ amusing and intriguing story - thank you :)
And with the morn, those angel faces smile...

User avatar
TheGreenGoblin
Chief Pilot
Chief Pilot
Posts: 17596
Joined: Thu Aug 08, 2019 11:02 pm
Location: With the Water People near Trappist-1

Re: Nuclear power plants in aircraft....

#18 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Sat Oct 31, 2020 4:07 am

llondel wrote:
Fri Oct 30, 2020 3:11 am
Now where did I put my stock of dilithium crystals?
Dilithium crystals are so yesterday. Alcubierre warp drives utilising tachyon fields are all the rage these days! ;)))
Dilithium is an element, a member of the hypersonic series, primarily occurring as a crystalline mineral. It was used to control the power of the warp drive systems of many starships by regulating the matter-antimatter reaction in a ship's warp core because of its ability to be rendered porous to light-element antimatter when exposed to high temperatures and electromagnetic pressures. It controlled the amount of power generated in the reaction chamber, channeling the energy released by mutual annihilation into a stream of electro-plasma.

Alternative local names for dilithium included radan and winter's tear. (TOS: "Elaan of Troyius"; VOY: "Muse")

Dilithium consisted of spiral molecules. (TAS: "T"he Terratin Incident")

Under certain rare circumstances, dilithium deposits could form in such a way that the crystals grew into perfectly aligned lattices. If enough dilithium was present, it began to form "generator strata". A piezoelectric effect occurred when the crystals took the radiant heat of the planet and converted it into mechanical energy. This mechanical energy could increase tectonic stresses in a planet's crust to the point where the planet literally tore itself apart. This phenomenon was responsible for the destruction of a number of planets in the Selcundi Drema sector.

The number of planets destroyed in the Selcundi Drema sector by the process described above in that episode suggests that for some reason the region had a much higher "population" of dilithium bearing planets than would otherwise be expected.


One method of detecting the potential presence of dilithium deposits during a geological survey was by studying UV absorption patterns. Certain characteristic patterns tended to indicate the presence of traker deposits, which were commonly formed along with the dilithium ore. An ico-spectrogram could then be run to confirm the ore's presence. (TNG: "Pen Pals")
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Dilithium
Though you remain
Convinced
"To be alive
You must have somewhere
To go
Your destination remains
Elusive."

User avatar
TheGreenGoblin
Chief Pilot
Chief Pilot
Posts: 17596
Joined: Thu Aug 08, 2019 11:02 pm
Location: With the Water People near Trappist-1

Re: Nuclear power plants in aircraft....

#19 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Sat Oct 31, 2020 4:31 am

A serious look at antimatter.



I am a fan of Aussie physicist Matt O'Dowd.
Though you remain
Convinced
"To be alive
You must have somewhere
To go
Your destination remains
Elusive."

User avatar
TheGreenGoblin
Chief Pilot
Chief Pilot
Posts: 17596
Joined: Thu Aug 08, 2019 11:02 pm
Location: With the Water People near Trappist-1

Re: Nuclear power plants in aircraft....

#20 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Sat Oct 31, 2020 4:44 am

Dr Miguel Alcubierre on the warp drive...

Though you remain
Convinced
"To be alive
You must have somewhere
To go
Your destination remains
Elusive."

Post Reply