Some show

[Mark]

Did anyone see a show about a nuclear ramjet of sorts? What they did was take a mile of tubing and zigzaged it to store up enough air pressure. A large tank could not have held such pressure. Then they heated up a bunch of steel or some other kind of metal balls to a red heat and passed the stored compressed air they had in the mile of tubing. This was to prove that a nuclear ramjet would have worked, but of course the risk of nuclear material in a crash obviated any actual flight testing.
Anyway, it seems like an interesting test, almost as simple as the howler tube in a way, a hot region pumping energy in and through a duct.
Mark

[mtmind]

These people:

http://www.newworlds.com/

Are developing a nuclear ramjet aircraft concept for powered exploration of jupiters upper atmosphere with Phase 1 and 2 funding from the NIAC. The project is summarized here:

http://www.newworlds.com/ramjetjp.html

And at the NIAC website here:

http://niac.usra.edu/studies/

under the heading "Exploration of Jovian Atmosphere Using Nuclear Ramjet Flyer"


Peace,

Mike

[Psignorian]

Nuclear powered rockets have been an idea on the drawing board at least as long as manned spaceflight, I think. There was even a design based on a bottling machine(I think) for kicking nuclear bombs out the back of a spaceship, which would be pushed by the shockwave. Theoretically, such a design would supposedly be able to get near light speed relatively quickly. I dunno, though...it'd quickly grow too contaminated to be of much use, I think. o.O

[Viv]

Nuclear powered rockets have been an idea on the drawing board at least as long as manned spaceflight, I think. There was even a design based on a bottling machine(I think) for kicking nuclear bombs out the back of a spaceship, which would be pushed by the shockwave. Theoretically, such a design would supposedly be able to get near light speed relatively quickly. I dunno, though...it'd quickly grow too contaminated to be of much use, I think. o.O

Project Orion, plenty on the web about it and you can get a good book on the history too.

Viv