Tim Jones
pfm Member
There's been some speculation on social media about the Russian "event" last week, and I had a bit of folk-memory lingering about these systems.
There is undoubtedly such a thing as a "nuclear rocket" wherein a single element fuel (usually liquid hydrogen) is ignited and propelled into a propulsion chamber by an nuclear "isotopic" system; which is essentially a lightweight, unshielded reactor. If the operational requirement is a vehicle with insanely long range, or almost loiter-time, then it's the only thing that will work.
With project Pluto, the US got quite far ahead with something similar (albeit a ramjet rather than a "rocket") in the late fifties, before the Johnson administration pulled the plug in 1964, on the rather understated basis that it was a "provocative system".
Apart from the multiple warheads that it could have flown around and dropped with relative impunity (all this is theoretical btw...), the vehicle itself was a very nasty weapon. It would have contaminated swathes of whatever it overflew with radioactive emissions. Added to which, the shockwave of something flying at Mach 4.2, under 1000 feet would have broken many things underneath it, including the civilian population's will to do anything except cower under their beds. And the fact that when it eventually crashed it would constitute an enormous dirty bomb...
Whatever one thinks of the Trump administration, pulling out of the INF (or other) treaties on the basis of the development of such a barbaric system seems completely reasonable.
There is undoubtedly such a thing as a "nuclear rocket" wherein a single element fuel (usually liquid hydrogen) is ignited and propelled into a propulsion chamber by an nuclear "isotopic" system; which is essentially a lightweight, unshielded reactor. If the operational requirement is a vehicle with insanely long range, or almost loiter-time, then it's the only thing that will work.
With project Pluto, the US got quite far ahead with something similar (albeit a ramjet rather than a "rocket") in the late fifties, before the Johnson administration pulled the plug in 1964, on the rather understated basis that it was a "provocative system".
Apart from the multiple warheads that it could have flown around and dropped with relative impunity (all this is theoretical btw...), the vehicle itself was a very nasty weapon. It would have contaminated swathes of whatever it overflew with radioactive emissions. Added to which, the shockwave of something flying at Mach 4.2, under 1000 feet would have broken many things underneath it, including the civilian population's will to do anything except cower under their beds. And the fact that when it eventually crashed it would constitute an enormous dirty bomb...
Whatever one thinks of the Trump administration, pulling out of the INF (or other) treaties on the basis of the development of such a barbaric system seems completely reasonable.
