the backpack nuke was perhaps the most darkly comic manifestation of an age struggling to deal with the all-too-real prospect of Armageddon
That or either the insane nuke gun called "the Davy Crockett" (which inspired Fallout's Fat Man) or the insanity called project Pluto - a unmanned nuclear powered craft that could stay in the air for months, launching many nukes, after which it "could then spend weeks flying over populated areas at low altitudes, causing secondary damage from radiation" (though the efficiency of that second part is disputed).
Oh shit, I think I might have access to a set of interviews with the engineers behind Pluto.
Know someone who worked on the project (long dead), or at least one of the nuclear aircraft projects in the 60s
Edit: It was this one he was convinced that they had solved it, just needed more time to develop the shielding. Can you imagine having nuclear airplanes? Good and bad for sure. Would reduce carbon cost of flying to virtually zero, but also flying reactor...
Reactivity control rods were installed and it was found that the control rods did not determine the output power of the ARE; rather, the power demand did, which affected the outlet and inlet temperatures because of the negative temperature coefficient of reactivity. The ARE was operated at power for 221 hours up to a peak of 2.5 MWth.
Fuck man, MSR is so cool. A power generation device that automatically outputs based on demand.
That or either the insane nuke gun called "the Davy Crockett" (which inspired Fallout's Fat Man) or the insanity called project Pluto - a unmanned nuclear powered craft that could stay in the air for months, launching many nukes, after which it "could then spend weeks flying over populated areas at low altitudes, causing secondary damage from radiation" (though the efficiency of that second part is disputed).
Oh shit, I think I might have access to a set of interviews with the engineers behind Pluto.
Know someone who worked on the project (long dead), or at least one of the nuclear aircraft projects in the 60s
Edit: It was this one he was convinced that they had solved it, just needed more time to develop the shielding. Can you imagine having nuclear airplanes? Good and bad for sure. Would reduce carbon cost of flying to virtually zero, but also flying reactor...
Fuck man, MSR is so cool. A power generation device that automatically outputs based on demand.