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From: nuchat!steve@uunet.UU.NET (Steve Nuchia)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Nuclear Powered Planes: Feasibility?
Message-ID: <11237@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Date: 8 Nov 89 04:41:07 GMT
References: <11151@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Sender: military@cbnews.ATT.COM
Organization: Houston Public Access
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From: nuchat!steve@uunet.UU.NET (Steve Nuchia)

>From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
>were abandoned.  Adequate shielding for the crew weighs an awful lot.
>Keeping shielding weight within the bounds of sanity requires shielding
>*only* the crew, i.e. the nose, which makes servicing etc. very awkward.

My father-in-law has done several "nucular" things, including sitting
on a NRC lisencing board for a while.  I asked him about this and
sure enough he knew a bit about it.  He even told me some of what he
knew about it :-)

Anyway, a point that hasn't been mentioned is that having only
the crew shielded meant that the bad guys could throw away all
those IR and semi-passive radar missile guidance systems.  Forget
stealth, radio silesnce, all that good stuff.  Might as well
go in with bullhorns blaring your favorite inspirational music
because you aren't going to surprise anyone with a geiger counter.

He indicated that the scientists working on the project were baffled
by the beurocratic mentality that thought there was any point in
working on the idea.  Nevertheless, a plane did fly with a reactor
on board.  It may or may not have been producing power at the time
but it was a functional reactor.  It didn't fly very many times though
and apparently never without at least some chemical propulsion.
-- 
Steve Nuchia	      South Coast Computing Services
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