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Comment by k310 | Hacker News Reader

The nuclear-powered jet engine:

In 1954, GE even put a nuclear-powered jet engine on a test stand in Arco, Idaho. It ran for more than 100 trouble-free hours before the project was shelved. The idea was that the the engine would use heat produced by a nuclear reactor aboard the plane to generate thrust. A plane with these engines could theoretically stay in the air for days and weeks. Although the U.S. Air Force did modify a B-36 Peacemaker bomber to carry a nuclear reactor, it never used the engines.

From https://www.ge.com/news/reports/the-nuclear-powered-jet-engi...

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The soviets flew nuclear powered planes for a while. http://www.aviation-history.com/articles/nuke-bombers.htm

I don't believe so? Your link doesn't say that those nuclear aircraft actually flew. (?)

I understand that the (claimed, alleged) 2023 nuclear cruise missile test [0] was the first, and only, nuclear-powered aircraft that has flown. All of the Cold War stuff was static-fire tested, at most.

[0] https://www.reuters.com/world/what-is-burevestnik-missile-th... ("What is the Burevestnik missile that Putin says Russia has tested?")

Huh. I thought I remembered that they had, and I thought the link agreed with me, but rereading it sounds like they just put a nuclear reactor on a plane and flew it to see if it would kill the crew.

"Between May and August 1961, the Tu-95LAL completed 34 research flights. Much of them made with the reactor shut down. The main purpose of the flight phase was examining the effectiveness of the radiation shielding which was one of the main concerns for the engineers. The massive amount of liquid sodium, beryllium oxide, cadmium, paraffin wax and steel plates; were the sole source of protection for the crew against the deadly radiation emerging from the core."

This died out because ICBMs mostly made cruising bombers obsolete as a first strike weapon, and also because people don’t like flying reactors.

It’d be so cool if we can make safe and light nuclear propulsion for commercial ships & planes.

The more we can boost human wealth, the better.

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