The Fascinating Tale of the Nuclear-Powered Bomber

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[mrbrianc]

The Air Force had a test engine/fuselage in the Idaho desert that failed spectacularly and spewed radioactive material directly out of the engine and fuselage exhaust across a large area.

[SeanBZA]

Incidentally the jet engine efficiency you talked about is backwards, 80% or so of the power output of the engine is devoted to compressing the incoming air, with only 20% or so providing the thrust. Turbofans improve things by taking the incoming air, and using some of the power diverted to power the compressor to turn that, making for a much larger volume of air being used to provide both thrust and cooling, with only a small amount of the jet output being used to provide thrust then.

[kirbymarchbarcena]

@20:17 "You can take the man out of the Cold War but you apparently can't say take the Cold War out of the man"

That's so cold, Simon.

[rdworldgarage]

Id actually say the transistor was far more important.

[WonderSausage]

There is an entertaining fiction novel about this bomber concept called "Steam Bird" (1988, Hilbert Schenck author)

[ketv]

B-36: Two turning, two burning, two smoking, two choking, and two joking.

[dhawthorne]

You forgot to mention the accident where they lost a chrome dome plane over the main land and almost detonated a plutonium bomb over North Carolina. One of the bomb was never recovered and is thought to have shredded on impact and the core is still buried in the middle of corn field.

[crystalsheep]

10:42 a single hook brake away from a nucular reactor falling from the sky seams a little unsafe

[pmgn]

9:36 - "...move forward with preliminary fright test..." 🤔 Hmm, normally I'd say Fact Boi misspoke, but in this case "fright test" is a better description then "flight test".

[Jaysin]

I played crossout for a while. Wasn't a bad car combat game, definitely loved the customization

[Mars-evqg]

The Japanese have a new nuclear reactor that uses spheres of uranium coated in advanced ceramics that makes a meltdown or major radiation release nearly impossible. The reactor uses helium as a coolant. Maybe this type of reactor will make safe nuclear powered long range aircraft possible. China is hoping to actually get a prototype nuclear powered airplane to actually fly in 2026 and by 2035 have a fleet of both military and civilian long range aircraft flying in regular service. This might be the only way to decarbonize long haul aviation.

[tgmccoy]

Good friend was a B-52 pilot in the "Chrome Dome " era. Crazy times.

[pseudotasuki]

The exhaust gases of the open cycle was only mildly radioactive, not "highly" as you stated. In short, the issue is that the gasses would get bombarded with neutrons as they passed through the core, causing some of their atoms to capture a neutron, converting them into a less stable isotope. But these are all isotopes which exist in the atmosphere normally, so it wouldn't be a big deal.

[paulcochran]

Five tiers of food, grade "A" to grade "A"....

[companymen]

You should do a video about the nuclear powered rocket engines.

[twocvbloke]

Normally it's mad scientists using nuclear stuff to do things, but in this case, it's mad governments doing it, and apparently re-doing it given pootin wants such things again... :P

[bonemeal_boi]

why does everything the cold war us armed forces make fallout seem tame

[peanutbutterisfu]

A Nuclear powered airplane is a great idea but weight and size is the problem to make it worth doing but even if they made it perfectly feasible it’s not a great idea to have the risk of a crash and contamination. I’m sure there is a way it’s just not a way that we currently use nuclear power it’s gonna be something very different.

[agi]

Now soon enough drones will be used to deliver small nuclear bombs and drones will be powered by nuclear power

[kyleguebert]

Nuclear powered consumer automobiles... all I think of is the '66 Batman series, Robin always saying "atomic batteries to power, " and I think it was even in the second episode future Bond Girl actress Jill St. John's character falls into the atomic pile.