|
Nuclear-electric, with electric ducted props all over the airframe, is probably the best heavy-lift aviation propulsion system. Same as or better power density, insane efficiency, virtually unlimited range, 10-100x less maintenance. Now, back in the day the NB program was experimenting with nuke aviation, but this is 1951, they don't have electric anything. No, they had DAC as one option, which is compressing the air through an open core, then the heated air gushes out the back. This was, incredibly, even judged unsafe by 1951 standards. IAC - indirect air - was using a heat exchanger to heat the air, then it shoots out the back, but this engine - the HTRE - had a pile of other problems, and was insanely wasteful in comparison. One of the enduring problems of these (and the SLAM PLUTO nuke ramjet) was using compressed gases as the cooling - it's very hard to make the flows consistent enough to get that precision cooling, because reactor control isn't very fine tuned. There's a definite lag time when changing reactor power. The consequences of a "compressor stall" sort of failure in an air-cooled reactor, where the fluid flow blocks up, were just too horrible. And of course DAC and ramjet nuke engines were basically Chernobyl on wings[1] - they're not going to be landing anywhere. Nuke-electric though, with a self-contained reactor making tons of juice, and then using distributed propulsion and laminar control to hack the lift/drag - that's where it's at. [1] Well, not really all that bad, because they're not chucking an entire Home Depot's worth of building materials into an open reactor. Still, any optimistic notions of the airflow being free of fission materials is a frickin' pipedream. It's going to be spewing out some nasty stuff, even if it doesn't damage itself, just by sucking in dust and other passing doodads. |