Nuclear Powered Missile?

Michael Everett wrote:Given the reliance on British Newspapers by many of the posters, I believe that this quote from "Yes, Prime Minister" will help to put things in perspective (albeit somewhat dated).
The quote is a conversation between (fictional) Prime Minister Bernard Hacker and his Undersecretary/keeper, Sir Humphrey from the Civil Service.

Hacker: Don't tell me about the press. I know exactly who reads the papers. The Daily Mirror is read by people who think they run the country; The Guardian is read by people who think they ought to run the country; The Times is read by the people who actually do run the country; the Daily Mail is read by the wives of the people who run the country; the Financial Times is read by people who own the country; the Morning Star is read by people who think the country ought to be run by another country, and the Daily Telegraph is read by people who think it is.

Sir Humphrey: Prime Minister, what about the people who read The Sun?

Bernard: Sun readers don't care who runs the country, as long as she's got big tits.

Amusingly, at the time of broadcast, the real-life Prime Minister was Margaret Thatcher.

A more up-to-date interpretation may be found here.

Maggie actually had an impressive pair of breasts, especially when she was nursing her twins.
Proof that a woman's IQ is not inversely proportional to her bra size.

I am beginning to suspect a bit of sabotage was involved.

http://www.businessinsider.com/russian- ... rts-2019-8

TFLYTSNBN wrote:I am beginning to suspect a bit of sabotage was involved.

http://www.businessinsider.com/russian- ... rts-2019-8

Or just plain engineering hubris. It's not like the first time "experts" have declared that something really can't happen because reasons or that this time it'll work!

Joat42 wrote:

TFLYTSNBN wrote:I am beginning to suspect a bit of sabotage was involved.

http://www.businessinsider.com/russian- ... rts-2019-8

Or just plain engineering hubris. It's not like the first time "experts" have declared that something really can't happen because reasons or that this time it'll work!

The power density needed for nuclear powered jet propulsion is extremely high. On the order of 1,000 MW per ton. The resulting temperatures and pressures can result in a spectacular failure.

The good news is that the inventory of fission in this thing was very limited. Think in terms of 10-100 MW thermal times may be 100 hours of operation time. This is 1/1,000 or lease of a Fukushima reactor.

Missiles don't run on fuel, but on mass-hurrying-thataway, which causes the missile's mass to meander the opposite direction. How could radioactive material figure into that? Possibility might be to heat the fuel or exhaust to cause the mass-hurrying-thataway to hurry faster. Conceptually, this is like an afterburner, which the Brits call "re-heat". Less than 100 pounds (45KG) of plutonium is required to make The Loud Noise, so that much kept just at critical would just release lots of heat over a longer time (more than the fuel burn time is useful if the missile becomes a scramjet, with the air heated by the almost-melting-down critical mass).

All this is fine theory, but if your math or machining is a bit off, you might have a fizzle instead of a nice trajectory.

I have no inside or outside data, just speculating.

I'd suggest that you don't try and make a nuke, as it requires much less plutonium than that.
You don't need to go anywhere near critical mass to get a lot of heat out of nuclear fuel, thankfully, as otherwise every nuclear reactor would be about to explode.

TheMadPenguin wrote:Missiles don't run on fuel, but on mass-hurrying-thataway, which causes the missile's mass to meander the opposite direction. How could radioactive material figure into that? Possibility might be to heat the fuel or exhaust to cause the mass-hurrying-thataway to hurry faster. Conceptually, this is like an afterburner, which the Brits call "re-heat". Less than 100 pounds (45KG) of plutonium is required to make The Loud Noise, so that much kept just at critical would just release lots of heat over a longer time (more than the fuel burn time is useful if the missile becomes a scramjet, with the air heated by the almost-melting-down critical mass).

All this is fine theory, but if your math or machining is a bit off, you might have a fizzle instead of a nice trajectory.

I have no inside or outside data, just speculating.

Something I dont understand is the point behind this 'cunning plan'...

Daryl wrote:I'd suggest that you don't try and make a nuke, as it requires much less plutonium than that.
You don't need to go anywhere near critical mass to get a lot of heat out of nuclear fuel, thankfully, as otherwise every nuclear reactor would be about to explode.

TheMadPenguin wrote:Missiles don't run on fuel, but on mass-hurrying-thataway, which causes the missile's mass to meander the opposite direction. How could radioactive material figure into that? Possibility might be to heat the fuel or exhaust to cause the mass-hurrying-thataway to hurry faster. Conceptually, this is like an afterburner, which the Brits call "re-heat". Less than 100 pounds (45KG) of plutonium is required to make The Loud Noise, so that much kept just at critical would just release lots of heat over a longer time (more than the fuel burn time is useful if the missile becomes a scramjet, with the air heated by the almost-melting-down critical mass).

All this is fine theory, but if your math or machining is a bit off, you might have a fizzle instead of a nice trajectory.

I have no inside or outside data, just speculating.

My speculation is that it is a compact fission reactor that is used to heat air from an intake and expell it out a nozzele, possibly with a turbine compressor. Power requirement is about 1 kilowatt to ten kilowatt per pound of thrust. Assume a ten to missile with five KW per pound and you get about ten megawatt power need out of may be a one ton reactor.

Run it for an hour flight and the inventory of fission products is about one millionth of a Fukushima or Chernobyl reactor.
This should not be a big deal.
Did they get a fission explosion by accident?