The Nuclear Powered Bomber

I remember some video footage of that plane back in nuclear power school. Made a bit of a mess & seem to recall the plane is buried in the same place as the contaminated tarmac.

 

Interesting, but it was a technological dead-end. The repercussions of a crash could have been horrendous, not from the standpoint of a nuclear explosion, but from the potential scattering of high level radioactive material. Just look at the shielding required for the crew compartment. In-flight refueling facilitated ultra-long range operation (the program's main goal) in a much more practical way.

 

As a proof of principle, a B-36 (NB-36H) actually flew with an operational nuclear reactor onboard. Not sure if that was in the show or not, since I have not seen it. Would guess it was. The reactor powered nothing on the B-36, which was fairly heavily modified. The NB-36H flew 47 times and the nuclear reactor was powered up for 89 of the total 215 hours of flight time.

The loss of the nukes in Spain put the kibosh on flying nuclear materials on anything but cargo aircraft for the US.

Taz
Terry Phillips

 

During the early 1950's, going nuclear was in vogue. Most U.S. interceptors in the late 1950's, were required to use tactical nuclear air-to-air unguided missiles (Genie), to knock down enemy bombers. I guess nobody thought about all the potential for radiation ? I am sure someone at least thought up an idea, of producing a portable nuclear powered coffee pot.

 

Actually a number of USAF officers stood underneath a Genie shot performed where the 1.5KT warhead was detonated, to test radiation exposure, which IIRC was at some 18,500 feet over the Nevada desert. One of them is still around today (this was back in 1957 after all) and he wrote about it on the internet. I tried but cannot find his article amongst the pages of links. Not a big deal really......considering the environment you'd be fighting in and the events occuring.

 

His name is Bud Butcher. He lives in Colorado Springs. I spoke with him on the telephone, about a year ago !

 

Did they glow in the dark for a couple of decades after?

 

You'd think so, right? Apparently, their dosage was almost nil. I'm fairly sure that the intensity of gamma rays is reduced by a large mass or air, so the initial burst probably didn't do too much to them, and all of the fallout probably landed in New York or somewhere It is truly amazing how much the US, China, and the USSR used troops in nuclear testing, though. Some of the tests were just downright scary.

 

The Trinity test was the scariest because we knew next to nothing about the effects of a nuclear explosion. Some of the troops at Trinity were unbelievably close to ground zero.

The first person to die of radiation sickness was Thomas Edison's assistant, who had used his hands on so many X-ray images. No clue what caused it then, but at least we were fearful by 1945. We should stay fearful, but at least now we can quantify the results. If you have not had to wear a radiation badge, you have no clue.

Bikini Atoll is now coming to life, but still too hot for humans. At least all the weird creature theories have not been demonstrated, thank goodness. Do not need those kinds of mutations. Bikinis are kind of nice, though.

Taz
Terry Phillips

 

I'll second the bikini thought!

Yeah, I guess Trinity was pretty damn scary, especially with the predictions of atmospheric combustion from some scientists. Glad that didn't happen.

BTW, ever see the pictures of Edison's assistant's hands after multiple doses? Yeech. Didn't some of Edison's early light bulb prototypes emit x rays?

 

Speaking of scary stories from the early days of experiments with radioactive materials...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Slotin

 

Whoa thats twice the lethal dose... it makes me think of the K19 ordeal except this guy had double the dose Louis Slotin had to take.

Name Rank Dose of radiation Date of death
Boris Korchilov Lieutenant 5400 rem[4] 10 July 1961

 

The B 36 Nuke project - from what i have read really only studied the operation of a small reactor on the aircraft. The reactor never powered anything.

However.. Over at the Nevada NTS they did run a few Nuclear powered rocket engines and maybe a static Jet engine. Very interesting setup. Had a tiny (short but full scale) railroad that transported the test stand from the assembly building MRAD i believe the structure was called, out to the test area. Mostly robotic because the whole thing was a messy SOB.

Any of you guys ever get out to the NTS tour ? I did 2X. Once prior to 9-11 ( A mind blowing tour run by the DOE ) and once after 9-11 ( A mind numbing waste of time run by a kindergarten teacher type guy from Bechtel)