Atomic Aircraft

Let's see, all we need is a water tank, steam boiler, turbine, some
uranium 235 or plutonium 239, plenty of lead shielding, a condenser,
and the will to cope with the radiation hazard in the event of a
mishap. Containment? We don't need no stinkin' containment. :-)

But weight isn't an issue in the micro gravity of space ...



http://www.newscientist.com/article/...-aircraft.html

Atomic Aircraft
18 November 2006
NewScientist.com news service

ENTHUSIASM for the nuclear-powered bomber project in the United States
blows alternately hot and cold. Mr. R. E. Gross, chairman of Lockheed
Aircraft, one of the two companies with contracts to develop the
airframes (the other being Convair) has said recently that if the
American government were to give the "go ahead signal", Lockheed could
have an aircraft ready to make its first flight in the mid-1960s.

The type of aircraft the company has in mind would have the shielded
crew cabin in the nose, the reactor in the tail as far from the crew
as possible, a small tankage of conventional turbine fuel for take-off
and landing so that the reactor was only at full power in the air and
never near the ground, and thin straight wings free from the
encumbrances of fuel tanks, engines or undercarriage gear. The Air
Force wants atomic bombers of this kind for the same reason that the
Navy wanted atomic submarines: they could range the world without
refuelling.

But the Air Force faces one great technical difficulty that did not
trouble the Navy - weight. Even when the weight of reactor shielding
is cut to the minimum by concentrating on a radiation-proof cabin for
the crew rather than trying to block all escape of radiation from the
reactor, it still remains the biggest barrier to getting an atomic
aircraft off the ground. Mr. Donald Quarles, who was until recently
Secretary for Air, told a Congressional Committee earlier this summer
that reactor weight had increased so much above original estimates
that any plans for putting the aircraft themselves into production
should be dropped while designers went right back to what he called
"reactor fundamentals". And this was when the US Government was
spending roughly £70 millions a year on the project. This evidence
could be read as meaning that the aircraft companies will not get the
green light they want until there is a technical breakthrough leading
to lightweight reactor design.

These facts should be borne in mind when Britain is criticised for the
absence of a similar project here. In spite of the unlimited range
that only a nuclear plant can give, some scientists believe it is not
a development that should be undertaken at this stage. Mr. Cleveland,
who is in charge of Lockheed's atomic design, has himself suggested
there are serious health problems connected with the maintenance of
atomic aircraft because of the radiation leakage. Other experts have
pointed to the hazard that would follow the crash of an atomic
aircraft, whose reactor would almost inevitably be cracked open,
making rescue all but impossible and, if there were a fire, spreading
fission products downwind from the wreckage.

This article was originally published in New Scientist on 11 July 1957