David Weinshenker wrote:
>
> Sander Pool wrote:
> >
> > I assume everyone here saw the Discovery Wings show about the Pluto project.
> > Attempts in the 50s (60s?) to build a nuclear ramjet powered cruise missile.
>
> I didn't see the show, but I heard of the project elsewhere...
> reportedly the wind tunnel at Marquart Labs where the one
> actual engine run took place was still radioactive decades
> later... and in flight there would be no safe way to shut
> the thing down once it was running (think decay heat...) so
> it was inherently a single use vehicles: Test runs, as well as
> aborted attacks, were to end by diving the beast into a deep place
> in the ocean. (They'd never be able to get the environmental impact
> papers for _that_ approved these days!)
It was my understanding that the U.S. nuclear ramjet project was
actually run in free air on a couple occasions in the Idaho lava beds,
near Arco. The area is now used for waste storage, since the test stand
is still hazardous due to radioactivity some fifty years later -- but it
wasn't a wind tunnel, and they were able to shut down the reactor.
--
Love wealth above life itself, and starve in splendor.
-- Elvish proverb
Donald Qualls, aka The Silent Observer NAR # 70141-SR Insured
Rocket Pages http://silent1.home.netcom.com/launches.htm
Telescope Pages http://silent1.home.netcom.com/astronomy.htm
Lathe Pages http://silent1.home.netcom.com/HomebuiltLathe.htm
Opinions expressed are my own -- take them for what they're worth
and don't expect them to be perfect.
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