Raise the Burevestnik

 aircraft, Hmm..., news, nukes, russian empire, weapons, youtube  No Responses »
Aug 222018
 

As described hereabouts back in March, Vladimir Putin claims to have himself a nuclear powered cruise missile. I remain dubious, but the fact is that the Russians launched *something* and it crashed into the Barents sea. The Russians seem to be looking for it… and chances are fair that the United states Navy is as well.

Back in July the Russians released a video that purported to show bits and pieces of the supposedly nuclear-powered Burevestnik missile:

The video does not show the configuration with any clarity. What can be made out is that it seemed to have a fairly conventional forward fuselage designed for low radar reflectivity, with relatively simple flip-out wings of the type common to cannisterized cruise missiles. Two further points can be gleaned from the video:

1) The missile isn’t that big… seems right in line with something like a Tomahawk.

2) The facility almost seems like  a high school gym.

Both of these argue against taking the claim of nuclear propulsion too seriously. Of course, it’s a video produced and released by the Russians, so it’s impossible to say whether it is remotely accurate; it could be pure deception. But assuming it truly depicts the weapon system, it seems *real* *small* for nuclear propulsion, and the facility and the workers in it seems to be pretty lackadaisical about working around nuclear systems.

 Posted by at 8:47 pm

NERVA to Mars art

 art, history, nukes, projects, rockets, spacecraft  No Responses »
Aug 192018
 

A piece of Aerojet artwork depicting the NERVA nuclear rocket engine heading to Mars. This is almost certainly artistic license as the vehicle depicted here is a single stumpy upper stage with an aerodynamic fairing. This is mot likely a RIFT (Reactor In Flight Test) configuration, a simple expendable upper stage test configuration meant to be launched atop a Saturn V to prove out the engine.

 Posted by at 10:06 pm

PDF Review: Feasibility of Nukes vs Solar…

 history, Hmm..., nukes, Patreon, projects, science, spacecraft  No Responses »
Aug 042018
 

…for extracting water from rocks on the moon. This dates from 1963-65 and was part of a North American Aviation study relate to post-Apollo lunar exploration… which at the time was fully expected. The LESA (Lunar exploration Systems for Apollo) program would land habitats on the moon for extended exploration; the later phases of the LESA program were expected to occur in the late 1970.s The conclusion was that solar was preferred for the earliest phases, transitioning to nuclear. Basically, either system would cook rocks till the water came out as a thin vapor, which would be collected.

In the more than fifty years since this came out, the technologies involved haven’t changed a whole lot, especially solar: it remains a mirror and sunlight. Nukes should – hopefully – have improved. So it might still be a bit of a tossup on the moon; of course, any long-term lunar exploration is going to need nukes anyway for the simple reason that two weeks of night is a *real* long time if your base is solar powered. Going further out – asteroids, outer planet moons, comets and such – the math increasingly works in nuclears favor. But then, what’s needed is power, and mirrors in microgravity can be made extremely large.

It’s an interesting report. If not for the technology and techniques described, then for the basic worldview that suggested to engineers more than half a century ago that they’d soon have to crack water out of lunar rocks.

A Study of the Feasibility of Using Nuclear Versus Solar Power in Water Extraction from Rocks.

Direct PDF download link.

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 Posted by at 3:17 pm

So where’d the smoke come from?

 Hmm..., nukes, science, youtube  No Responses »
Aug 032018
 

Often in nuclear test footage there’s a great big mushroom cloud. As I don;t need to explain but will anyway because why not, the cloud is basically dirt and smoke that has gotten sucked up into the fireball; and since the fireball is *very* low density compared to the cooler surrounding air, it ascends like a balloon and drags the dirt and smoke and dust and ash along with it.

But then there was the “Wrangell” test from Operation Hardtack II, Oct 22, 1958. This was a dinky 0.115 kiloton airbust, suspended from a balloon at 1500 feet above the desert floor. As you can see in the videos, the fireball never comes anywhere near the surface. The ground isn’t cratered, probably isn’t substantially disturbed by the relatively small burst (dust is kicked up over a distance of perhaps a mile or two, but that dust isn’t sucked up to the fireball). And yet as the fireball cools, a whole lot of smoke is left floating in the air. I *assume* that this is the balloon and the bomb itself, converted into vapor and reacted with the air, but there sure does seem to be a lot of it. Could some of it be the air itself, perhaps nitric oxide compounds created by the high temperatures?

 

 

 

 Posted by at 5:27 pm

Convair Outpost: 3

 art, history, nukes, projects, rockets, spacecraft  No Responses »
Jul 292018
 

This piece of artwork of the Convair “Outpost” seems to be a little bit later than the others. It depicts an Outpost with a nuclear reactor for a power sources; this is held off at some (not terribly great) distance for the purposes or radiation mitigation.

 Posted by at 4:28 pm

Aircraft structural response to nuclear blast

 aircraft, history, nukes, youtube  No Responses »
Jul 222018
 

This video, while being in somewhat poor condition, having a giant watermark splashed on it and having what seems to be added sounded effects, is just plain interesting, showing the effects upon two QF-80 drones flying not far above a 1955 nuclear test. Both drones were equipped with film cameras in the cockpits that looked aft, so you can see how the horizontal stabilizers fared; the first shows the mushroom cloud rapidly rising behind the aircraft. This is a somewhat impressive shot.

 

 

 Posted by at 11:34 pm

Yay, free plutonium

 AARRRGH, Crazy, dumbassery, I'm from the government, nukes, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Jul 162018
 

Plutonium went missing in San Antonio, but the government says nothing

Are you a small nation with big ambitions? Do you want to have your own nuclear weapons, but don’t have the industrial or scientific wherewithal to develop the reactor technology to produce plutonium? Well, good news! There’s an easier way!

Just stake out motels in high-crime neighborhoods and wait for idjits from the Department of Energy to park overnight and leave nuclear materials in the back seat of their rental car. Spoiler: smashy, smashy.

 Posted by at 12:51 pm

SLBM Quad Launch

 Hmm..., nukes, rockets, russian empire, youtube  5 Responses »
Jul 012018
 

If you want to know what it will look like when Putin launches World War V (WWIII having been the Cold War, WWIV the Surt worshippers vs. civilization), it’ll look kinda like this, just more so (things get sporty around 2:06):

 

I look forward to the day when the US fields new boomers, SLBMs, nukes and RVs. They are desperately needed.

 Posted by at 4:37 pm
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