The Nuclear-Powered Aircraft that Will Change Everything 

I know P&WA did work on a nuclear aircraft engine at the CANEL plant in Middletown, Ct. CANEL is an acronym for Connecticut Advanced Nuclear Engine Lab.

The US Military decided it was not feasible at that time. Due to limitations on certain metals. Plus the cost was very, very expensive.

The crew shield was very heavy for the application

Did he get cancer?

@@JohnDoes620 only ass

We need

It is already in the work in our orbit and through out the solar system. . .See Germany and the Hanebu. . .

I don’t know whether to be depressed or impressed by how many of history’s technology breakthroughs were in the pursuit of better weapons of war.

@@MusicAutomation maybe just disgusted. . . because the money comes from OUR taxes and is used to destroy humanity. . We pay to get killed or just being made sick. . .

@@MusicAutomation impressed of course. Why would you be depressed?

And for a bathroom break!!!

@@rogergoodman8665I would assume the plane would be unmanned, that or it would be large enough that it has bathrooms/sleeping quarters, and a large food supply. It would probably need 2 if not 3 crew to operate it for anything beyond a day or 2. You could also get creative and have it be remotely piloted while it’s enroute and have the pilot nap until it arrives in a combat zone

You don't come here for reality you come here for sensationalized mispronunciation!

For what repairs and what parts exchange?

@@rogergoodman8665 Yeah diapers, need to be changed.

Fusion reactors can also inexpensively produce tritium. Also, there are other ways to produce the fusion reaction without tritium, such as boron.

I have read the entire Wikipedia on Environmentalism and am therefore an Expert on nuclear power and I can tell you have no idea what you're talking about. Unless we stop using all fossil fuels and go to 100% Solar Power before the end of 2025 the world will be uninhabitable within 10 years. And the only way we can do that is by giving all the world's power and all the world's money to Experts like me so we can enforce Environmental Law and make a 100% Equitable World Economy where everything is owned and controlled by the World Government.

Interestingly, the last of the milestones for commercially viable fusion reactors (after recouping not only the electrical energy fed into the magnetic field and into heating of the plasma, but also the computers that control the plant) is to be able to sell enough electricity to pay for the tritium. This last factor could very likely be insignificant for a military application. The strategic advantages of an energy source that isn't tethered to a supply chain would outweigh its cost disadvantage in a ton of applications. On the other hand, any application in aviation has the disadvantage over a stationary power plant that poses severe restrictions on possible reactor weights and sizes.

@@fishing953 Boron is way harder to use and no a fusion reactor does not produce Tritium. If you think it does give me a link to a peer reviewed journal article to prove it.

@@gordonlawrence1448 This is from Wikipedia. Look at the peer journals quoted below it. One of the fusion start up companies in the US is using this method - do some research. quote: Tritium, one of the reactants required for this type of fusion, is radioactive. In fusion reactors, a 'breeding blanket' made of lithium is placed on the walls of the reactor, as lithium, when exposed to energetic neutrons, will produce tritium.

Like before 1911.🤪

And used the wind 😂

Seems like this could be a better solution than what they are trying to do with them now. Sure there's security issues. I think it could be made pretty safe. Except most of those crew members are getting paid under $10 a DAY. Not sure I want a crew paid like that to be that close to anything radioactive.

​@@bobbysenterprises3220 I agree 💯

Ot can be done but it won't be.

No I don't believe that. They recently got more energy out of a fusion reaction that went in. Now that was in the test vessel itself and not the entire reactor itself. But that is a major step many many people thought was '20 years away'. Fusion is gonna be one of those technologies that will just appear out of nowhere. Meaning all the work done in multiple places will all reach the major breakthroughs all at once.

@@TK199999 only by fudging the numbers do they get more power out . they only count the energy out from the lasers they use . but laser are less then 10% efficient ,more like 5%

….until mankind needs it, or just before that.

@@TK199999 you’re so naive and wrong. Look deeper into it. Don’t be a regurgitator(sic)

I've heard the same thing about global warming.

@MichaelMicah-gx6cn screw you scammer

Don't have too hard of a time... It was back in the early 70's that the president of SkunkWorks made a statement along the lines of "Whatever people think of as science fiction, like warp drive, we've done all that and taken it way further..." Is the tech in the video available to conventional military products anytime soon? Probably not... Not sure the same can be said for whatever black projects are already fielded

@@chrisburke624 Yeah, I don’t buy that either. One man’s statement is not fact. Warp drive my ass.

The concept has been around for a long time. It just took too much energy to fuse atoms

...as do the majority of us, with basic scientific knowledge and common sense.🤷‍♂

Yeah it sounds like a fucking reddit post. THE VERY TIP of the ice berg

You are luddite since Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" in of 1932 said "only idiotic morons are satisfied from laying rail transit tracks of rail transit track construction"

even using the current gen of ion thrusters this would be a game changer. having unlimited energy to speed up to get to a destination or slow down when you get there is a massive leap from where we are at today. if it actually works ya know.

​@@jeff119990 exactly my thought on this comment and also to the potential for novel drive system

@@hybridt The Original Project Orion and Daedalus combined with solar sails and ion drive could get us to 40% the speed of light with 60 years ago tech! Some even say up to and over 80%!

​@@jeff119990 how is nuclear energy on a ship unlimited?

we cant use nuclear power for spacecrafts it needs propellant gas. unless we make it to heat up the propelant gas, i think burning the gas will be much easier

Radium powered 1930s car

I believe they already done it once for the b-36 peacemaker back in the early nuclear years

It probably already exists. We, the people who paid for it, won't see this tech for decades...

It's far easier to believe that the B21 has low wing loading and high fuel capacity, or even that it is powered by a fission reactor, than it is to believe the B21 is powered by a fusion reactor. Do a little research and you'll soon find there's just no way to fit the equipment required to run a fusion reactor into an airplane of reasonable size. Heck, one article I read indicated the Lockheed design would require 30-to-100 TONS of shielding. (For reference, the GE9X, developed for the Boeing 777-X, weighs only 21,230lbs)

@@warpedweirdo Your spot on, It would always be the shielding that would doom it

The other possibility is that the B-21 is using the Rotation Detonation Engine (RDE) being developed at present, which is far more powerful and efficient than current jet engines.

@@warpedweirdo There are now multiple research projects at Universities around the world for development of efficient shielding materials for fusion reactors. So may be not too far away.

@@fishing953 They might also be impossible. Who knows? I don't, and you certainly don't either. Getting your hopes up every time there's a new press release only results in you being let down more often than you otherwise would. You ought to adopt a wait-and-see attitude.

NOPE

Was he referring to the TR-3B?? I thought that was slightly more recent than the 60's but the focus was now on its successor & now its upgrades

I had an uncle who was a Martin Marrietta engineer and he talked about various experiments that (his company had a hand in ?!?) had taken place with nuclear powered airplanes. Turned out to be impractical due to the weight of the shielding needed to keep pilot from "roasting" ...

He was fabulating. Only one example was made of the NB-36H, the only American aircraft ever made with a nuclear reactor. It was scrapped in 1957. Maybe the reactor is still stored, perhaps at the Naval Reactors Facility in Idaho Falls. I would rather say that not much has happened in this field since the 1960's and I'd be much surprised if even DARPA has anything flying with nuclear propulsion today. It's simply not a great idea.

@skunkjobb ...more like flatulating! 💩 ...the NB36 carried an experimental nuclear reactor. It did NOT power the aircraft.

@@skunkjobb The notion that it's a bad idea makes sense. If 1 of these aircraft were ever shot down, That would create a massive security crisis for the entire world. The idea of a hostile state getting hold of this tech then immediately becomes the number one security issue, not to mention the potential environmental disaster that would also be occurring...

I take it you already understand the fundamentals of Fusion Reactors like the rest of use? I believe this channel is going under that assumption.

@@venturefanatic9262 I gave up about 2/3rds through. All that had been said to that point was that it was small and used fusion. Other than size, it said nothing that couldn't be said about any magnetic confinement reactor.

Oh you missed where they keep saying " with a little more testing ".

@@deanmason5827 little being the only thing said in 15 minutes.

Copied from A E Van Vogt

Wut? 'Directed energy', 'containment field'?! You mean it can be used to spread radiation or as a dirty bomb?

Yeah, but that fuel was absolute trash.

@Michael Micah ermmmmm lol

Kirk to Scotty- An engine the size of a walnut powering the Enterprise.

TNG episode: the Survivors.👏👍💯

A single plane that doesn't use fuel is probably worth scrapping 10 that do. The profits made by designing new aircraft would probably outweigh the headache of retrofitting this onto a modern aircraft

Space even more. These are perfect for hybrid jet/rocket.

They've been working on it for decades in one way or another. Don't bet on it.

Do some research before you embark on flights of fancy! Even if Lockheed were actually producing these things, there is no way they'd fit onto any existing airliner; they'd be FAR to big.

@@warpedweirdo Just this last year I've seen a couple of contenders. Technology is always five years away until it suddenly isn't. AI is apparently really really really really really good at magnets already. And also physics. Finally using those graphic card physics accelerators to accelerate physics. It's not if it hockey sticks, it's when.

Hypersonic air-to-air missiles or lasers would be the only way to fight. (Maybe rail/coil guns as well but that's probably going to be complex.) But don't hold your breath. These planes would be extremely rare, expensive and complicated. So much in fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the US only has these planes in very limited numbers. Maybe China many years later but by then the US would probably be a generation or two ahead. And even then, commanders might be extremely hesitant to use them to intercept other hypersonic craft. They'll most likely be used for surveillance or tactical/strategic strikes. If fusion is even possible to begin with. As a practical and sustainable fusion reactor has yet to have been made.

Human body would end up getting in the way of the technology. Limiting the design to help keep the human alive, not a pile of jelly.

@@Angl0sax0nknight Good point Thank you.

Yeah but Reagan gave those trillion dollar fighters to Japan in the 80's. The US never saw a single one fielded.

And Battletech has Fusion Reactors in their Mechs

Asian Anime is better written sci fi since to consider how even British Literary compared to popular sci fi of America

That would be the Anakin Skywalker series.

Snake oil. Don't buy it.

Interesting observation. But, yikes! pilot to pilot dialog while traveling at 80,000 feet and Mach 5 ........... Careful on passing that nuke, buddy.

Lol! Do you make blueprints about jet fighters?

I assume in the future Plutonium fuels come from any corner station but today an inventor would be Walter Pecked by EPA?

Dave Burdo of GE Erie. PA. showed interest in my solid fueled jet engine to power road vehicles while an editor in of Chengdu Sichuan wanted to use it to power cruise missiles.

It hasn't. This is all based on Lockheed-Martin marketing fluff, and wishful thinking. Lockheed's design, if feasible, is a long, long way from being small and light enough to realistically power an airplane. The best fusion reactors in existence today consume far, far more energy than they produce. Lockheed has given us nothing to indicate that their design will be any better. Were they truly in "high beta" Lockheed would be trumpeting their success to the world and selling licenses. The promise of fusion power is still just vaporware.

@@warpedweirdo nuclear engines produce much more power than their weight such a nuclear subs but you also gotta think we’ve last really updated our nuclear engines in the 80’s I believe with the Pennsylvania class sub maybe there’s a more modern one but it takes a lot of time and money to get this right one mess up and a whole factory could be destroyed look at Chernobyl as an example

@@udpbooter The video was about FUSION reactors, not FISSION. There is a massive difference between the two reactions. One engineer estimated that Lockheed's reactor design would require 30-to-100 TONS of shielding. How much would all the other equipment weight? You've got the reactor itself, which will be very heavy. (Electromagnets are not light.) You need a cooling plant, to keep the reactor's magnets just a few degrees above absolute zero. You need particle accelerators to inject fuel and energy into the reactor. (More magnets for these, lots of weight.) You need a the steam turbines and generator to convert a major percentage of the reactor's output into electricity to run the particle accelerators and cooling system. (Massive weight there.) And you need the actual engine that converts whatever energy remains into thrust. You can't just wave your hands and say weight isn't an issue because... power. No runway is going to stand up to the rocket thrust required to allow such a monstrosity to lift off vertically into the air, and I doubt pilots will put up with a 300mph takeoff roll. So... how big do the wings have to be to lift this bulk at a reasonable takeoff speed? A C117III Globemaster has a max takeoff weight of 585,000lbs, and a 174' wingspan. The plane weighs 282,500lbs empty. The 4 engines weight 28,400lbs. A full load of fuel weighs about 23,500lbs. Let's round up to 52,000lbs total for fuel and propulsion. Let's say the total weight of a fusion-based propulsion system and its fuel is only 150,000lbs. That's three times the weight of propulsion and fuel in the C117. Multiply the max takeoff weight of a C117 by three, you get 1,755,000 lbs max takeoff weight for a usefully performant nuclear cargo plane. Does that mean a 522' wingspan too? This is getting ridiculous. The fusion propulsion system will need a power-to-weight ratio of about 3.1:1 to match that of the the jet engines and fuel on a fully-loaded C117. That's 465,000lbs of thrust. Hah, fat chance, but whatever. I suppose you could just load the fusion power plant into a C117, cut total capacity, and fly it that way. But what a waste! There's no way the cost of the fusion power plant would be justified by the useful capacity of the C117 when compared to the much cheaper engines presently in use on the C117.

@Michael Micah No No I didn't win a giveaway I didn't enter.

What is important is rail transit should be replaced with Dynairships or Lifting Body Airships of Robert L Morrison's patented Lighter Than Air solid "SEAgel" and replace agriculture with fermentation single cell culture vats of electroporated Knall Gas bacteria.

I heard in 5 years.... 20 years ago...

Just 20 years.....

They have been researching this since the 1950's with considerable amount money put into it in the 70s and 80s when they said that commercial use was 20 years away. LOL.

Faulty concept and always will be.

I think it's completely bonkers. Cargo ships? okay maybe. Airplanes? Hell no.

@@cardboardpig The Sea Is Full Of Nuclear Melt Downs Bomb Test & Nuclear Dumps Now! Our Cancer Lotto @ 30 CPM

i hope we are very wrong about that

How do you know? Exactly what?

@@skunkjobb faith, they have faith