America's Insane Plan for Nuclear Powered Planes
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- čas přidán 4. 04. 2019
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[1]www.aviation-history.com/artic...
[2] ieer.org/resource/factsheets/...
[3]ocw.mit.edu/courses/nuclear-e...
[4]ufxufo.org/nepa/nepa2.htm
[5] Page 20 ncsp.llnl.gov/LA13638/reports...
[6] Pages 19 ncsp.llnl.gov/LA13638/reports...
[7] large.stanford.edu/courses/201...
[8] Page 39-40 ncsp.llnl.gov/LA13638/reports...
[9] • Convair XB-36H atomic ...
[10] Page 7 ncsp.llnl.gov/LA13638/reports...
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This is my first spot with curiositystream and I am delighted. I absolutely loved that documentary I mentioned at the end. Well worth the watch, especially when it's free with this link: curiositystream.com/realengineering
Haven't finished watching the video yet. Just felt like saying #OccupyVenus with nuclear powered airplanes.
Love real engineering
THEY will need water for propulsion, they cant carry unlimited water
Dude fix your title, america no, USA. America is a continent i live in C U B A
i REALLY dont think nuclear planes are a good idea
Plane crash however few statistically, happens
And in this case ONE PLANE is able to cause another nuclear disaster
Furthermore it will be a main target for enemy forces as it is hugely expensive and will cause quite a blow to that force
Any vehicle: *Exists*
U.S military: Let's put a nuclear reactor into it!
Hardly an American phenomenon. The Soviets also tested nuclear powered aircraft. They were also much less safe in protocol with shielding and monitoring and preparing/testing...
@@matchesburn The Soviets in generally valued life less... The nuclear tests in Kazakhstan were conducted near populated regions, and resulted in up to hundreds of thousands of deaths due to radiation exposure (the Soviets never even attempted to collect information on the death toll, same with Chernobyl, which resulted in 20-60 thousand deaths in radiation related cancer or otherwise). Not to mention all the mutation of survivors. There are tons of families still affected by mutation and cancer today in Kazakhstan. People cry about what the US did on accident, the Soviets did what they did intentionally.
That’s Fallout
The video game if you’re wondering.
@@weasle2904 Look up Marshall Island dumbass.
@@elinikolai7493 What about them?
I can't remember if you mentioned it in your pacemaker video but a nuclear pacemaker was made and surprisingly(!) didn't catch on. There was also a nuclear (plutonium 238) powered artificial heart. Working on a project about this.
I do remember reading about it. Looking forward to that video!
From what I understand, my father was given a nuclear pacemaker. It worked for 7 years after he died.
I'll have to look into it.
@@samuelnakai1804 please update us
@@samuelnakai1804 really? wow. They were mostly implanted in the 60s and 70s, does that sound right? Almost all were in the USA. Some people still have them in but I think most have been removed.
@@Richard-Freeman ha, sadly I'm not handsome enough to appear on camera with them. It's one of CZcams's weird rules.
Its so great to finally see a video on this project. My grandpa was a lead engineer in the project, and was disappointed when it was eventually scrapped.
That is sick
Hehe 'lead'
3:50 this 100% is Anakin Skywalker's pod racer
Eivind Rømcke now this is podracing
Came here just for this comment
TELL EM, BRUDDER
I can't unsee it now.
Atom bomb is not uncontrolled.
it is made in a very precise way to make that reaction.
when a reactor melts down(uncontrolled) it doesn't make it into an atom bomb.
Call of pripyat
@@as1m_ that was a pressure explosion
Afaik its actually what you call it.
Uncontrolled and controlled. The "controlled" just means that the chain-reaction is so low that it doesn't grow beyond a set point instead of the chain reaction in a nuke which is built to grow as fast as possible to maximize the energy/time
The uncontrollability is achieved in a precise way that’s what he means. In a reactor the amount of atoms split are consistent, for example, 30 per second. In a bomb, the atoms explode and cause other atoms to explode and those atoms explode other atoms. The number of atoms spilt increase exponentially. And just cause it’s done in a precise way doesn’t mean it’s controlled. We can’t control a fucking nuclear bomb...
Very disappointed with this episode. This comment is absolutely correct. It is misleading for the presenter to imply uncontrolled equals atomic bomb. No nuclear reactor, even one mounted in a plane, would go off like a nuclear bomb. It has to be a very precise set of circumstances and a channel named “real engineering” should know better. Too bad because if they miss, Lord knows what else they miss.
Nukes *exist *
Cold war countries: "It's free -real estate- energy"
WE currently have the technology for using nuclear fusion as an energy source. You take a non aligned neutral country and nuke it a number of times to form a radioactive dessert with a large ground zero crater in the middle. Then you manage the rain water drainage to flow towards the enormous crater previously nuked out. You now can drop a fusion bomb into that water filled crater to form steam which can be collected and channeled through piping into turbines to generate FREE ENERGY.
@Powerofriend That's how Murica works!
@@Powerofriend but we don't have pure fusion bomb lol
@@Powerofriend you do not need to go to such lenghts, an underground space with molten salts will work way better
@@ssd21345 we actually do, and had for decades. it is a two-stage mechanism but it does get its energy from fusion and it is orders of magnitude more powerful than fission.
7:25 "The B-36 Peacemaker was the only aircraft in the United States arsenal capable of taking off with a massive nuclear reactor"
Imagine if the C-5 Galaxy existed in those days...
I read that as the B-36 Pacemaker 😆
My grandfather was a US Navy aeronautical engineer during WWII having graduated from Annapolis about 1918. He helped to design some of the aircraft and aircraft engines that were used by allied forces. I still have the Engineering Handbook from his school days. It's chock full of math equations and physics formulae and ratios etc that he had learned for wrote or knew to look it up or slide-rule it. I don't understand them myself but I have a computer that does. He advanced to the rank of USN Captain and served as a Naval attache to Britain. During his last years after the war he was assigned to help engineer a long range atomic powered aircraft bomber. He eventually was rotated out due to retirement age. He never believed in it. He thought it was madness but was mandated to do the best he could under the strictest secrecy. After his retirement I had enjoyed him as a magnificent grandfather growing up. I'm a mechanical engineer myself now working in the aerospace industry on the manufacturing end of things. He succumbed to dementia and paranoia thinking that "they were watching him, and coming for him" because of what he knew. He was a wonderful but mysterious man from a family of buggy makers in Ohio, full of knowledge whom I wish was alive today because I have so many questions to ask him now, now that I know what to ask.
3:10 "when uncontrolled, this reaction gives us the atomic bomb"
No. It takes a lot of careful and deliberate design to make an atomic bomb, you can't accidentally make one. If a nuclear power plant explodes it's not because of this chain reaction, it's because there's a build-up of steam.
Thank you so much for pointing this out. The video creator did not discern between atomic and nuclear energy. It was readily apparent when he compare the atomic bombs to nuclear reactors.
It is controlled to have a uncontrolled reaction
Explain this to Iran
It's controlled to make it go out of hand as fast as possible.
Right. When uncontrolled, you get Chernobyl; a non-explosive, but very long lasting, radiation ball of radiation. Crazily enough, from some point of view the atomic bomb seems *less* damaging than a meltdown, at least from the perspective of how long the region is unusable...
As an American ex-naval nuclear reactor operator on an aircraft carrier, the idea of an aircraft nuclear power plant is, frankly, frightening to me. Also, than you for the last reference. I love reading reports of reactivity excursions. I find them super interesting, probably because I actually know what they are talking about. :)
My uncle worked on that project at GE. He died of pancreatic cancer in 1994 along with nearly every coworker of his at the time.
I’m sorry to hear that.
I had a uncle who died from Leukemia. A friend contacted my grandmother and told her the reason he was sick was the Nuclear testing after WW 2.
Just imagine if Japan had these in WWII
S F omggg😂😂😂
Dude that’s fucking hilarious
We would be at peace because there would be no China xd
Unethical Guided Nukes XD
yαтѕυғυѕα there might also be no America
Great video Brian! One small comment in the 4:30 section talking about contaminated exhaust: Contamination would suggest that actual fuel particles were being fed out the exhaust. The technically proper terminology would be "activated exhaust" where certain elements in the air would absorb neutrons and transmutate by releasing beta or gamma radiation.
Or "excited" afaik
Easy to see where Star Trek's design for the USS Enterprise came from if you look at the HTRE-3
DAMN IT this comment needs to go up!!
Is that true? Wouldn't this program have been extremely classified?
Oh i kinda see the similarity
@@seandevine5836 There's two reasons why I assume this does not have to be the case, firstly, Gene Roddenberry was a military pilot during and after WWII so he might have been better informed and secondly, as shown Kennedy cancelled the program in 1961, after which I assume some of the information would have been declassified. According to Wikipedia, the first Star Trek series was drafted in '63-64, making this a plausible timeline.
Furthermore, Matt Jefferies the actual Star Trek set designer and creator of the original Enterprise NCC-1701 was also a WWII pilot and continued as a flight test engineer for the US Airforce
Putting nuclear bombs on missiles
Putting nuclear bombs in planes
Making a plane using atomic energy to power it and crashing it into the ground
Legends get the meme without pictures
Japan would've fucking obliterated the U.S. with this tech.
M1A1 Abrams 3rd Generation MBT gru
🤣🤣🤣
Putting DEPLETED URANIUM in M1 abram
Jon Snow okay calm down we’re here for jokes
You forgot about program this spawned: Project Pluto, nuclear ramjet cruise missiles
And that could have actually worked if flight testing of the nuclear engine had been possible (it used an unshielded reactor and spewed radioactive exhaust). At least the terrain following guidance system technology they developed for it got reused in the tomahawk cruise missile though.
They used to do a lot of the testing with reactors at an area near my hometown, now turned into a massive park called Dawson Forest. They flooded the compound, sealed off the entrances, and filled the rest of the buildings with stones. Locals have all kinds of stories about it. Two headed deer and snakes, secret govt employees, people’s hair supposedly falling out- the whole spectrum of crazy.
Yep. Quehanna in PA is where they did the jet engine testing.
Used to be a road called “Reactor Road” to “Lost Run Road”.
Isn’t that funny.
KSP....
I may test it out for nuclear jetliner
@Noxar CZ use a ridiculous amount of ion engines
Get KSPIE, lots of nuclear engines in there. My spaceplanes all use nuclear engines and can carry up to 100 tons into LKO, and can fly in the atmosphere forever!
theres tons of mods who use thermonuclear jet engine !!!! infinite fuels but not that much thrust to balnce it out
Someone has done this
@@lexus14blacklist Matt Lowne?
Insane? No.....Impractical for the time? YES....Let's see when Fusion is achieved and how this can be miniaturized in the future.
I totally agree. We currently have green alternatives to most forms of transport except flight. I hope that fusion reactors or something similar can fill this gap
fusion could almost give us limitless amounts of energy
These engines are still sitting outside at Experimental Breeder Reactor 1, just outside of Arco, I'D. They are right next to the picnic tables.
I've been there when I was at S1W.
Yeah it is really cool! One of the best museum I have been to!
Edit: you should go to the national atomic testing museum in Las Vegas. You can slap a 5 megaton bunker buster. I don’t know if they still have it there, but it is very fun.
Led to the Molten Salt Reactor. This appears to be a major player in Generation Four nuclear reactors. A test reactor was built and tested. This reactor can not melt down, produced 1/1000 of the waste and cost 1/10 to build. Kind looks like something that we'll be seen in the near future.
I heard There was a security issue whit them
@@vacciniumaugustifolium1420 yeah, Pres Nixon wanted jobs in California. The other thing was MS would have replaced the whole nuclear industry of the time Making solid fuel and refiling solid fuel reactors was a big business. Liquid fuel would have destroyed that industry. The MSR was a success that was killed for these reasons.
I think the corrosion was still a problem?
@@watintarnation9801 yeah they were still studying how to manage corrosion and xenon gas buildup, but it was a research project after all. They made huge progress with corrosion and no one involved in it thought it was an insurmountable challenge. It's a shame progress was halted by politics
This is the kind of video that made me become a patreon of this channel. Awesome work man.
That triggered my Fallout 4 PTSD.
At least it ain't Fallout 76 ;)
Atom reached out and touched this world, bringing His glow to us. It remains to this day, a reminder of his promise. Infinite worlds through divisions.
so you are deep in the rabbit hole ?
What about the Soviet nuclear bomber? That one actually flew, and it worked.
Although they "solved" the shielding problem by just not shielding it and letting the crew be irradiated...
It didn't. They only tested shielding. As far as I could tell from my research that misconception was from a false news report in an aviation journal
And shielding is necessary for all electronic and electrical instrumentation.
@@RealEngineering So Curios Droid steered me wrong?!
czcams.com/video/kR5gefU87TY/video.html
Say it ain't so, Droid! Say it ain't so!
The plane that flew was the Тu-95 LAL, basically a Tu-95 bomber that was converted into a flying laboratory. They made about 30 flights with the nuclear reactor on-board to test the many aspects, including shielding for the crew and electronics. No one ever let the crew get irradiated (that is, as in countless cases, just an american myth about the USSR). The project was shut down in the 60s because the USSR has already developed ballistic missiles, so a nuclear bomber wasn't needed anymore. many of the engineering breakthroughs made during this this project were then used in other projects, like nuclear powered ice-breaking ships and submarines.
it seems sources do not agree completely... but some say their reactor never powered plane and plane only flew with regular engines while reactor was online... also some say that americans never turned on reactor when in flight... who know...
This is fascinating and crazy that I've never heard of nuclear-powered planes! CuriosityStream seems like a pretty good deal for someone who watches documentaries
3:11 I would avoid using the term "uncontrolled." They're both controlled for different purposes if that makes sense.
Exactly.. in a nuclear weapon, the hard part is to control the explosion sufficiently to get it to explode in an uncontrolled way....
No, the nuclear bombs are uncontrolled but they are precise, so every nuclear bomb has an uncontrolled reaction but every uncontrolled reaction isn't an atom bomb, which this chanel didn't seem to mention.
I just wanna say again, excellent video. I wanna add that in the world we live in today with everyone worried more about how they look in a picture then to how they feel on the inside it is very easy to become pessimistic. It is exhilarating to see someone with your intelligence using it for the purposes of "good" and to benefit yourself and many others, like me, and I thank you for that.
From what I can tell, although the use of nuclear propulsion in crewed aircraft was deemed suicidal, it was not the end of such research. The Supersonic Low Altitude Missel or SLAM, was to be an incredibly fast, long-range and radioactive fission power missed developed by the US in the early 1960s and capable of destroying vast swathes of the soviet union at a time. Development was unsettlingly far along when the program was scrapped in 1964 reportedly due to the disruption of the balance of power between the U.S and the USSR such a terrifying superweapon would bring. Curious Droid made a great video on the topic If anyone is interested.
By the way, it seems like the concept is making a comeback as Vladimir Putin is developing another one... simply wonderful.
Imagine canceling a project because it was too good at what it was designed to do
Now imagine using the same engine on a smaller vehicle. Maybe TicTac or Propane Barrel size. And make it neutrally buyant so it stays afloat...
Call it a UAP or UFO and call anyone crazy for reporting on it and do a smear campaign where you gaslight the society into believing in aliens...
Do it secretly under a joint Nato nuclear military protection group during the cold war and add people from the previous world war under operation paperclip....
Continue the program after the US and other countries all signed treaties saying they wouldn't make nuclear powered aircrafts. Officially removing thw program from any oversight by the US government or congress...
But keep it funded through Cia and fbi black book payments through spec ops. ($12,000 dollar toilet seats... )
After you realize the high exposer to nuclear energy is bad, and the ability for a person to move limits the vehicles performances. You remove the pilot and make it a full Drone.
Because the Tic Tac Nuclear powered aircraft isn't a deterrent but a shield to protect major cities from a nuclear icbm.
It is designed like the iron dome system to intercept nuclear missiles as conceptualized in the American psyche as "Superman" who diverts a nuclear bomb...
Because in the prototypes a man had to fly it. And so it would be a suicide mission. But now they're drones.
The concept was futher shown in the original avengers film as well as the dark night series...
A noble single man's sacrifice to save a city...
But now they're unmanned drones that apparently the US government has atleast 12 of.
I worked for a LFTR start-up (FLiBe Energy) several years back. It's awesome and has so much potential!
I love this project. No one ever believes that we would work on such a ridiculous project when I tell them about HTRE and the nuclear-powered bomber. Did you know that the HTRE test reactor melted down? It was one of the fundamental learning points in reactor design.
I'd love it if you could include more reactor and nuclear-related material. I often find that this subject is wildly misunderstood even by physicists and engineers.
By far the most educative channel. Hands down!
I really love these videos about historical engineering. It’s amazing to see where we’ve been. Where we should not go again in our future
Historical oofs
Thank you for talking about Thorium!
having watched a couple documentaries and read a fair bit about it I knew I wouldn't learn anything but clicked and watched to the end anyway because you present your videos so well, thanks
Actually very possible nowadays with lighter materials to build the reactor with and also lighter shielding material separating the reactor from the crew. Wouldn't be shocked if a project like this gets started again
Nuclear-Powered-Planes project is insane, but not Molten-Salt-Reactor projects.
Yes
More crazy: air cooling Nuclear reactor
They are basically the same thing dummy
Nuclear powered planes would be a step to solve our current environmental issues, its the opposite of insane.
@@MrPobanz Radioactive Fume goes wheeeee
Something tells me 9/11 could've been much worse...
Yes and no. No jet fuel means that theres no burning liquid to take down the towers so the wtc would stand, the problem is the radiation.
@@CarlosAM1 But jet fuel can't melt steel beams?😝
@@henk-3098 it cant, but it sure as hell can weaken them :p
@@CarlosAM1 but if you fly a nuclear reactor into a building im ptetty sure youd be missing more than 2 towers plus radiation
@@fdfischer I would say no, the weight of the reactor plus the removal of fuel weight means that on impact the reactor would probably just disintegrate and spread radioactive material everywhere, this material if left unchecked and if able to keep itself on a feedback loop would at one point melt and generate absurd ammounts of heats, though unlike jet fuel its not spread everywhere as tons and tons of burning liquid, meaning that perhaps the tower could take the impact and subsequent heat, thing now is the radiation which wont do shit to the tower but will probably be an issue for people nearby.
thank you for including the perspective of the ethical dimension in addition to the engineering problem! good job!
responsible engineering!
Longtime fan here! I don't know if these have ever been requested before, but here are a couple things I'm really curious to learn more about:
1-Why do supersonic planes have rectangular intakes? The Hornet has round intakes but the Super Hornet has rectangular. I've heard it has to do with how they ride the sonic shockwave to cruise at high mach speeds? How does that work?
2-What's the difference between flow types in rocket engines? Open cycle, full flow, closed cycle... How does this all work and how does it affect performance? And it seems they mean different things for nuclear vs conventional rockets?
Anyway, I love the channel, and would love to see your take on either or both of these!
as usual, an excellent video wendover production
Yeah. Yeah! Do one on molten salt/thorium reactors!
It is much safer
@@kanarayanaphd but i like always having a chance of having fallout games in real life though
Nice animation on the neutrons colliding man, gj
It is a very interesting topic for your video, but you should have spoken about the Tupolev TU-95LAL and the plans for the Tupolev TU-119, as the soviets had activated their nuclear reactor, and had successfully completed approximately 40 test flights.
I literally like the video before I even watch it now. Video quality is so consistent and good.
You and the guy above you have basically the same profile pic.
@@XZenon oh yeah yeah
The depth with which you explained in this video was great. Also it's good to know that the plan wasn't dropped because of some technicl limitation but the possibility of a fallout in sky.
Learned a ton. Thanks for the well done video
There was plan to make a aircraft carrier out of ice too
Cool, now talk about molten salt thorium!
thorium rocks
@Mario India's built a thorium reactor, it's in trials right now...
@@tsubadaikhan6332 I think the only thing that stopped thorium from being better than uranium in reactors is that thorium dioxide is pretty hard to make, having such a high melting point.
Also, the elements it makes when it undergoes fission could be seperated and made into bomb grade uranium, but thats not really an argument because uranium reactors make plutonium.
@Mario And this is what you get when you only have a surface level understanding, not of the subject, but of the CZcams video debunking something completely unrelated. In the TF video he even states that Thorium reactors could very well be viable but the Thorium car, which is what the video was about, was bullshit.
@Mario Correct. The specific claims made by the Th powered car video are physically impossible. A nuclear powered airplane is feasible if misguided. A breader reactor using Th as the fertile fuel is not just a good idea but our best bet to fight climate change.
I have stood next to these, at INL, and the EBR-I museum. They have them sitting next to the building. Plus you can stand in the reactor core of the EBR-I. It is really fun to go to the national atomic museum, you should go if you can!
Great job! Really like ur vids!
Well , actually, in I believe the 1970's, the US once again went to work, this time to build a nuclear-powered cruise missile. Of course it was also cancelled, but the thing looks cool AF
"insane" is a bit overly dramatic. ill conceived, maybe. overly ambitious, probably. but not insane.
i think i'll stick with insane. like a lot of other things humans have done in times of fear, and the cold war was such a time for sure.
the idea is understandable, having a plane with unlimited range and no need for refueling doesn't sound bad, but come on a flying nuclear reactor is pure madness no matter how you put it.
not as much as usa and russia threatening each other and the whole world with nuclear weapons but still...
They had a nuclear reactor with an OPEN FUCKING COOLANT LOOP
Imagine Chernobyl, except it's DESIGNED to vomit radioactive particles all over the countryside. If that ain't insane, I don't know what is.
Indeed, insane is a bit exaggerated. In fact, this technology might become useful in the future in which aviation is electrified, especially in the EU. Shielding indeed should be improved to make the reactor withstand a crash from 30000ft out of the sky to make sure nothing is radiated on the ground. When that issue is fixed, then cargo planes could start using nuclear airplanes and perhaps followed up by passenger planes of deemed safe enough.
The point of the project was not to actually put planes into the air but to advance the types of nuclear reactors possible. The extreme needs of an aircraft would mean that novel approaches would be tested that would be helpful in a wide range of circumstances. It was not insane. It was carefully thought out. The Molten salt reactor experiment kept going during the 1960’s
Exactly. This is just fear mongering with pseudo engineers.
Could you do a video on engineering itself? Maybe specifically modern and soon engineering careers. I am in high school and thinking of either aerospace or nuclear engineering and would like to know more about those as well as my other options
Wonderful video good information well done keep it up
My grandpa used to work at the nuclear reactor near the Idaho National Lab. He's never told me about these tests (probably for multiple reasons) but has told me about the reactor meltdown that happened there. It was like Chernobyl but more tame. Many died, and multiple tons of material is now buried in a secure off limits area. Luckily he wasn't there when it happened. Also, the first nuclear powered town, Arco, is also in Idaho. They have amazing fried pickles.
Those “unnecessary” bombing runs saved many, many lives by ending the war.
Stfu
These videos are one of the best made on CZcams
This is not an insane idea, in fact we will run out of oil that powers planes and everything else in as little as 100 years. Long before that nuclear power "which is the only power source we will ever have that is more energy dense then gasoline" will need to power planes, trains and automobiles. We need serious research into light weight shielding for nuclear power so these things can become practical asap.
"Sir, we have two delivery methods on the board: Should we go with developing an ICBM or a nuclear-powered plane?"
"Wait, that is an actual question?"
One scientist one experiment one nuke can change the world
One pen one teacher one student can change the world😀😀😀
Yhhh right
Also can change the game
Right
@@rohitbabakumar1068 how many accounts do you have?
Just saying thatdocumentary is actually reall good and definitely worth a watch. It's also available on certain non condoned websites.
I live quite close to where reactors where tested in idaho, there was actually a melt down here that oddly enough is one of the few that's not talked about often despite it being the only accident in the US to result in immediate death.
Dude this video was just uploaded. Woah, I've never been this early. I love your material dude, well researched and interesting
Why are nuclear-powered planes an insane idea but not nuclear-powered submarines or aircraft carriers?
Gorigori the shielding from radiation is too heavy to be realistically put on a plane. And the super heated air that the nuclear powered plane would use as propulsion would spew out irradiated air into the environment
For these, weight and size isn't really a problem. Besides, the water can be used for cooling.
I agree. That's prolly just for thumb nail clicks.
"Insane" could mean "insanely good" or "insanely bad" depending on of you think nuclear power is good or bad. I, for one, am for it. Now if we could just do something about that pesky radioactive waste. Lol.
Power to weight ratio is not as big a problem on ships and submarines. And water is a much better coolant than air.
airplanes by their very nature are lightweight, and when they fall they spread debris over a large area
submarines implode in depths and their hulks may never resurface again
I love how interesting and complex they truly are. And you can imagine the world they had in mind, where everything was nuclear powered. Imagine that alternate reality.
Planet Earth would have liked hit, can you imagine a world with less reliance on fossil fuels or how quickly nuclear power and safty measures would have advanced had we actually fulfilled the promise of the nuclear age?
@@YoshiyukiTomino I wish we pursued more Nuclear energy. We could have had a much lower carbon foot footprint just on the electricity sector alone
Love the knowledge you put out is there anyway you could do a video on double helicopter blades. One propeller with a contra rotating blade on top? (I.e. are they needed? Is there a benifit? and how they really work) Thanks
Nuclear motors have been approved for aviation since the 1950s, however they are exclusively used in black project (now) triangular craft (TR-6 Telos, Astra, Locust, TR-3A Black Manta, TR-3Bs)
I seriously doubt that. All of those are putative black project stealth aircraft. Leaving a massive isotope trail is the antithesis of stealth. No nuclear motors have ever been approved by the FAA, and engines for black projects don't need regulatory approval that would compromise their security. Furthermore, they would have to be unmanned aircraft as the massive shielding needed to protect the pilot would cut into the aircraft operational usability. I think you may be confusing nuclear powered motors with the various exotic (but not nuclear) propulsion systems some of these are speculated to employ.
i understand that Jane's military encyclopedia refers to an "Aurora" project which employs antigravity tech.
The late nuclear physicist Stanton Friedman was a senior engineer working on the nuclear aircraft project and after retiring
went on to study UFO/ET phenomena .
@@michaelclark4876 not true, many nuclear aircraft Patents exist, and have been approved bu the FAA. And, a contained system leaves no isotope train, just like in submarines. Putative indeed! Amusing.
@@yahwea Yes, a fully contained system would not leave a radioisotope trail behind. It would need to some system for transferring power from the reactor to power turbines running turbofans. Rubbing a true jet would be difficult as you would have to heat by heat exchange rathe than fuel. I have doubts about practicality due to the need for shielding (major problem with the first nuclear aircraft designs) and with a closed system it would now require heat exchangers. So I' still dubious, and patents can be issued for mere ideas, but they are still a good place to start. But FAA doesn't approve ideas, only aircraft so that would imply an actual aircraft that has gotten off the ground. So it doesn't matter what anyone believes, If the patents and FAA approvals are there, they are there.
Could you provide some patent and FAA approval references? URLs to the primary sources in the pertinent government databases would be ideal, but even patent reference numbers ( for the designs you mention) and info to allow using the FAA aircraft registry lookup service (such as N-number, serial number, make/model, etc.) You can find the search types at the looks page here registry.faa.gov/aircraftinquiry/
To be honest, I looked and was unable to find anything, but just because I couldn't pull it out of the FAA database doesn't mean it isn't in there. Clearly you know enough to find the reference, could you provide the info needed to pull up the data. I'm interested in reading about this.
3:10 This makes it sound like a reactor going out of control turns into a nuclear weapon, which is not the case. This isn't the first time RE has been sloppy on nuclear fission.
Nah fam, it's merely stating that controlled fission is how we get nuclear power plant energy, and uncontrolled fission is how nuclear bombs work. Even if you're really nitpicky on this, it's more an English usage error than anything else.
I would hazard a guess to say that it's common knowledge for people to know about controlled and uncontrolled fission, but I might also be horribly wrong too considering how many flat-earthers and antivaxxers there are out there today
Following up on what I was saying about applications of fission: iirc nuclear plants have about 5-20% U-235 content (enriched uranium), and nuclear bombs use somewhere around 85% enriched uranium. Pretty hard to create nuclear bomb tier explosions from reactors by flipping some switch. Usually, the nuclear plant explosions happened in the past due to buildup of steam or hydrogen gas, the latter of which is then ignited by the high temperatures. Still conventional though, and incapable of triggering an uncontrolled chain reaction.
@@the-fantabulous-g My point stands.
Fascinating what was possible with 10 Million at that time
Best engineering youtube channel ever
How to destroy enemy territory
Make one of these bombers
Ram it into an enemy city
It melts down
Profit
Not really, once the geometry of the fuel bundle is lost the fission process will stop.
Yeah i was thinking something similar. Even if a nuclear reactor would not explode upon crashing.. this type of bomber would always cause some damage. Either it drops bombs like intended, or it gets shot down and spready radiation in the atmosphere over some city plus at the crash site lol. Would kinda suck for the receiving end.
Nuclear meltdown isn't a nuclear explosion
@@joshuamunoz3310 It doesnt have to be,A nuclear meltdown would leak radiation all over said city,resulting in it being unlivable,like Chernobyl
So a Missile...
Could you do a video on Tesla's contributions to engineering? I feel like not enough people know about his work
I second this.
mini dwarfdude what? Elon musk is already famous enough dumbass
@@klown463 Do you know who Tesla is? (Or was. He's dead now.)
Very nice videos.
Sigue así.
Un saludo.
Even if you could make a nuclear powered airplane.do you think those countries would allow you to fly over to their airspace?
This would be the Greenpeace's worst nightmare
This could or has been modernized to be drastically more safe. Having the ability to stay aloft indefinitely in our atmosphere is to bright of a project to drop
Dangerous though anyway. Safer may be made, but the nuclear core remains a liability. Aviation accidents still regretfully happen. Now try and image an accident of a nuclear powered plane. Perhaps over or in the proximity of a city. Not only a sad happening for the passengers and the few unfortunate bystanders on the crashing place, but a hair-raising irradiated nightmare for thousands to millions of people.
I acctually live pretty close to the lab in Idaho and when ever I pass it you can see the hanger where the plane was being built and the engine to the plane still is
With nuclear-powered aircraft carriers you have enough room to store enough food to make having a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier make sense. I don't see those aircraft (or any other bomber, for that matter) using much of its available space used to store enough food to keep the crew fed for long enough to make having a nuclear-powered aircraft worthwhile. That's the main question in my mind when I hear about nuclear-powered aircraft. What's the point if the crew starves to death while flying in the air for months (or even years) at a time?
I don't know why its "thankful" that this was never developed. This would have been extremely useful for spaceflight.
3:30 "big mama" truck rig \m/-
Not the only crazy B-36 venture......but it was a time of adventure, excitement....and shed loads of dollars......and that fine old British-born axiom, " Have a go chaps!"
Two prototypes of nuclear aircraft engines are on display at the CBR reactor building site, east of Arco, Idaho. You're driving down the highway towards Idaho Falls and see a small brick building on the south side of the highway. The two objects near that building are the jet engines. The plaques say that the engine ran under test conditions for, I think, hundreds of hours before cancellation. It's a interesting stop.
Curious Droid also did an op-Ed on this topic as well!
yes and some others too... once one of this channels has good topics all do videos on that topic lol
"Unnecessary bombing campaigns?" [sigh] More history rewritten. How we do forget "context" as time passes.
Yeah - I cringed when the narrator spoke that line too. The video was pretty good over all, but that simplistic and unnecessary comment at the end soured the whole experience for me. Stick to the facts please.
Some were unnecessary. And I think today you would call them war crimes.
I know some people argue the two Nukes over Japan shorten the war and saved lifes. I can't answer that, but it doesn't take from the point that 1 Nuke should have been enough to show Japan what can happen.
Marcus Antonius Eh, Japan took two nukes before it surrendered, so no.
@@MarcusAntoniusbla fuck did you know what japan did to Korea and china
DO IT AGAIN, BOMBER HARRIS
Leaves out the progress that Pratt & Whitney made on a nuke fueled engine. I worked in the engine test facility for P&WA so I know it existed. There is also a story going around that Russia tested a bomber without the lead shealding with a volunteer crew...that didn't work out well for the crew.
Dude don't mean to disrespect your video/work but the song at 2:20 (Imprismed - Dead Cat) is absolutely awesome! A big hurrah for epidemicsound! And you/your video, obviously, for the excellent choice!
Nukes.
America: *Insert picture of Elmo with a mushroom cloud*
The HTRE reactors still exist and sit out in the parking lot at the EBR-1 Reactor museum in the Idaho National Laboratory. There is also a 4 rail shielded locomotive used for towing items around on display that gives an idea of just how shielded something has to be to deal with these reactors.
Its one of the more interesting things you can visit as you can get pretty closer to the HTREs and the EBR-1 tour goes throughout the building including standing on top of the containment vessel and even going through the fuel rod storage and replacement rooms.
at 4:44 the good old aft. plug
I kinda think that's a big one
You should do a video on the 2021 formula 1 regulations and what dirty air is as well as how it effects the F1 cars
07:23 That says XB-36H though, not NB-36H....
X stands for Xperimental
@@rHolmskov Yeah NB-36 will be Nuclear Bomber - 36 H (H probably the variant of B-36 it was made from) and XP-36H will be the prototype.
@@rHolmskov Yes, obviously, but he talked about one aircraft and showed another. This is an outrage!
(JK obviously...)
Corporations and governments frequently give different designations to the planes. It's for marketing purposes.
Nuclear engined plane that drops nukes
What could go wrong?
Lmao
Murica fuck yeah!
So nobody’s gonna talk about how great that intro is?
Love your videos.... @2.20 you mention that the absorption of the neutron causes 'severe vibrations, ripping the Atom apart' ... I think this explanation seems a little bit misleading. The word 'Vibrations' implies some sort of thermal motion to me.
Nuclear Planes: **exists**
terrorists: im about to end this man's whole career
So its flying fukushima
Okko Heinonen great kamikaze plane
Okko Heinonen flykushima
The first thing that comes to mind when picking a coolant… salt lava. Love it.
If you visit the EBR-1 in Idaho, a National Historical Site, open to the public during the summer months. You can see the nuclear engines that were tested for the airplane.