…a colossal demonic robot vulture

[Balog]

http://t.co/XrQ4BVRH0s

This thing puts WH40K weapons to shame. Moar dakka indeed.

[MillCreek]

I liked the part about spewing out red-hot deadly radioactive exhaust!

[TechMan]

For the win:

This crazy bastard had so many ways to kill you, it was like a death buffet: should I die in the nuclear blasts of the bombs themselves, or just let the shockwave of the overpassing missile kill me? Maybe I'll just wait for the radiation sickness as this thing circles endlessly overhead, like a colossal demonic robot vulture. It's so hard to choose!

[seeker_two]

Don't show the plans to Obama....he'll launch them at Syria & the WWII Memorial....

[freakazoid]

Would that thing really of put out enough radiation as it went screaming by to be of any type of danger to anybody?

[AJ Dual]

Would that thing really of put out enough radiation as it went screaming by to be of any type of danger to anybody?

Direct radiation as it went by at Mach whatever? Probably not.

Ablated fuel rod and fission byproducts in the exhaust plume?

I wouldn't want to be downwind. 

[brimic]

In the first world state of mind that we live in where people are terrified of gluten, peanut allergies, public restrooms, drinking out of a faucet, global warming, guns, fibromyalgia, sweating, people outside their normal social circle/demographic, and bad breath, this would make an AWESOME terror weapon.  

[HankB]

So it gets it's thrust simply by heating up the air itself? No other reaction mass? And the exhaust is radioactive . . . meaning neutron flux is high enough to act on nitrogen, oxygen, and argon to form dangerous levels of  radioisotopes in the exhaust? Hmmm . . . seems a bit of a stretch, maybe I'll have to dust off my old textbooks and see if the numbers work out. Let's see . . . start with PV = nRT . . .

[brimic]

So it gets it's thrust simply by heating up the air itself? No other reaction mass? And the exhaust is radioactive . . . meaning neutron flux is high enough to act on nitrogen, oxygen, and argon to form dangerous levels of  radioisotopes in the exhaust? Hmmm . . . seems a bit of a stretch, maybe I'll have to dust off my old textbooks and see if the numbers work out. Let's see . . . start with PV = nRT . . .

Worst case is that if it fails, you land an unshielded reactor on enemy soil somewhere (1)that has no cooling.

(1) edit to add: I don't think 1950s rocket and guidance technology was much more advanced than V2/SCUD/Nodong tech.

[AmbulanceDriver]

So it gets it's thrust simply by heating up the air itself? No other reaction mass? And the exhaust is radioactive . . . meaning neutron flux is high enough to act on nitrogen, oxygen, and argon to form dangerous levels of  radioisotopes in the exhaust? Hmmm . . . seems a bit of a stretch, maybe I'll have to dust off my old textbooks and see if the numbers work out. Let's see . . . start with PV = nRT . . .

Yup, simple ramjet design that works by heating up the already compressed air from the ram effect to 2500 deg. F (well, that's the reactor's operating temp at least, according to the article).

But let's see... Neutron activation of the air, gamma and neutron flux (no cooling, no shielding, no problem!), and screaming along at Mach 3 at treetop level....   

Predecessor for these guys?

[Tallpine]

Well, if you could come up with some sort of heat exchanger that eliminated the radioactive exhaust, then you'd have a pretty good core design for a SSTO shuttle 

Would still need initial booster rockets (or something) to get up to ramjet ignition speed, and of course propulsion beyond the atmosphere.  Maybe switch to nuclear rocket using some sort of "operating fluid" for mass reaction

[Scout26]

Which explains why the eastern US is nuclear wasteland after all the nukes we set off in the Nevada Desert*.

 




* 1,021 nuke detonations.  921 below ground.

[Pb]

I think one of these was used against a lovecraftian monster in the Stross story "A Colder War"...

Didn't work...

[AJ Dual]

Which explains why the eastern US is nuclear wasteland after all the nukes we set off in the Nevada Desert*.

 


* 1,021 nuke detonations.  921 below ground.

Yah, or Hiroshima/Nagasaki are wastelands that put Detroit to shame...

Although to be fair, the isotope spread from a nuclear reactor vs. a fission or fission/fusion or fission/fusion-enhanced fission bomb, and the half-lives are probably a bit different. Granted, while the Chernobyl exclusion zone isn't all peaches and cream, the removal of human activity/impact from the region seems to balance out the damage done by the radiation in many instances.

Although I suppose part of it is the relatively short lifespans of many wild animals is such that the exposure doesn't have time to add up like it might in humans, and the effects isotope concentrations as they migrate and concentrate up food chains could start rearing it's head in future years.