7 ms·

U.S. Has Been Watching Russia's Nuclear-Powered Cruise Missiles Crash and Burn

44 points by IntronExon 9y ago

thegreatcosmo 9y ago
Maybe but either way the era of USA unilaterally pushing wars just ended. Russia with their hypersonic nukes and proxy wars wins have just made western imperialism via war and culture have very high costs.
- emerged 9y ago
  I don't see how this in any way changes the stalemate of mutual assured annihilated.
  - behindmyscreen 9y ago
    MAD under ICBMs allowed us to get our weapons off before we were hit. This tech would allow for very little warning and could potentially take out enemy missile sites before launch.
    - IntronExon 9y ago
      Hence fleets of boomers with Trident missiles.
      - behindmyscreen 9y ago
        You think air bases won't be a primary target as well?
        IntronExon 9y ago
        Boomers = Nuclear Submarines.
        behindmyscreen 9y ago
        Gotcha
- adventured 9y ago
  Nothing has changed at all in fact. For better or worse. Russia just rattled their sabre because they're desperate. They've recognized an inability to keep up economically with the US and China, and they will fall further and further behind because of that. Russia's population hasn't expanded in nearly four decades. In that time the US has added 100 million people. China added 400 million people. That population expansion is an economic weapon. Russia's economy hasn't expanded since 2006-2007. Putin entirely failed to transition the Russian economy off of dependency on energy prices. Without economic growth, they can't keep spending more on their military. Meanwhile the US and China perpetually expand their economies. The gap between the US and Russia economically has gone from 11 to 1 in 1989, to 15 to 1. And it's worth noting that output gap in 1989 was already extreme, as Russia was effectively a bankrupt nation at that point. That the US has continued to put distance between it and Russia economically, is a massive failure by Putin. Or to put it in another perspective, Canada now has a larger economy than Russia. And then the China story. Well, that's just a joke of a comparison. In 1989 China had an economy 1/3 smaller than Russia. Today it's 10 times larger. It leaves Russia wilting in contrast, they've become a second tier power.
  - thegreatcosmo 9y ago
    While your logic makes sense, there is far more to war then economics, otherwise the middle east wouldnt be a mess, and then there is the vietnam war. Something has changed greatly. It is the fall of globalism and the rise of nationalism. Putins reminder he has the will to use MAD is sign of the new times.
  - behindmyscreen 9y ago
    With the current anti-immigrant nature of the American right, the US will start to stagnate in population over the next decade if those people are not removed from power.
  - meric 9y ago
    I agree with all your points and it makes the US obsession with Russian influence ridiculous IMO.
- chiph 9y ago
  I'm guessing you're too young to remember the era of MAD, starting in the 1950's going thru 1990 and the fall of the Soviet Union. The emphasis is on "mutual" - both the US and the Soviets had arsenals which were ... excessive. The Chinese did not participate because A) they couldn't without substantial expense, and B) "Go ahead, you guys blow each other up while we watch."
exabrial 9y ago
The good news is, no one wants a nuclear war anymore... at least I hope. I think what changed is largely trade. China, usually the USA's enemy, has benefited enormously by trading with the USA and providing a cheap labor pool for manufacturing after Unions made it too expensive to continue manual manufacturing in the United States. So if my theory is true, it's probably worth allowing vestment in our fellow nuclear superpowers. Seems backwards, but most things in economics and game theory are.
- behindmyscreen 9y ago
  Unions didn't make it too expensive to manufacture. China just made it way cheaper (slight difference there). A Union made product doesn't increase the cost of the product much, but employing people at wages that provide a moderate income level does reduce profitability.
- craftyguy 9y ago
  > The good news is, no one wants a nuclear war anymore... Donald seems to really want it. https://mobile.twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/948355557022420992 https://mobile.twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/9483555570...
- sehugg 9y ago
  The unfortunate thing is that Putin has signaled that he's willing to use tactical nukes in a regional conflict, and the U.S. is signaling back that they're willing to do the same. A tac nuke detonated anywhere would be a globally destabilizing event, and a regional nuclear war would be a catastrophe.
- forapurpose 9y ago
  > I think what changed is largely trade. Somewhat famously, this belief was widespread before WWI - who would want to fight a war when we're all profiting so much from trade. The two biggest wars in history were fought in the next 35 years. The current US government likes to disregard every rule of international relations (and fire or fire all the professional diplomats). Those rules exist because, while they are frustrating in the short term, they prevent wars and promote progress in the medium-to-long term. Politics and international relations are not under immediate control of political leaders - many didn't want war in Europe, but they had started the mechanism and couldn't stop it. The idea of those rules is to never get in that position again.
roywiggins 9y ago
And that's why we didn't test one ourselves back in the 60s. You need a special kind of attitude to be willing to fly one of these things over your own country. Or perhaps just ready access to barely-populated Arctic regions where nobody's watching you drop nuclear reactors around. These things are the most over-the-top method of beating missile defenses. A normal response would be to just deploy more missiles, which are cheaper and faster to build than defense, so it's easy to keep up. But no, apparently they went in this direction.
- PoachedSausage 9y ago
  Putin has a certain reputation to maintain? The simulation with warheads dropping on Florida reminded me of the old idea of dropping Tungsten rods from orbit onto your enemies, I'm surprised they didn't propose that one too.
  - kahnpro 9y ago
    "Rods from God"
- eveningcoffee 9y ago
  >These things are the most over-the-top method of beating missile defenses. A normal response would be to just deploy more missiles Deploying more missiles would be visible and would clearly demonstrate aggressive intentions.
  - mannykannot 9y ago
    In a way that saying you are developing nuclear-powered ones does not?
    - eveningcoffee 9y ago
      I think if you count public opinion then it may be more acceptable to have small number of advanced cruise missiles than to have more missiles. For example what sounds more aggressive, 10 cruise missiles or 1000 missiles?
clon 9y ago
> At the most basic conceptual level, the weapon could conceivably reach supersonic speeds, fly at very low altitudes, and have effectively unlimited range thanks to its nuclear powerplant If the Ruskies have developed a reactionless rocket engine capable of crashing further down range than experimental error, I would keep silent as well /s
- voidmain 9y ago
  Reactionless? Presumably the reaction mass would be... air.
  - clon 9y ago
    Oh my.. Never thought of that. Surely it does not use the atmosphere as the primary circuit coolant?
    - TheOtherHobbes 9y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Pluto https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Pluto
      - behindmyscreen 9y ago
        If only there were a good way of heating the air without contaminating it with radioactive emissions. If we could figure that out, such an engine would be useful in many non war related jobs.
    - wcarss 9y ago
      That's one of the ways these could run, yes. But hopefully not the way this one is -- there are direct exchange and indirect heating methods that have been researched. Check out Project Pluto on Wikipedia [1], and the Direct Air Cycle part of the Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion page [2]. From the Pluto page, "The principle behind the nuclear ramjet was relatively simple: motion of the vehicle pushed air in through the front of the vehicle (ram effect), a nuclear reactor heated the air, and then the hot air expanded at high speed out through a nozzle at the back, providing thrust." 1 - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Pluto https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Pluto 2 - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_Nuclear_Propulsion#Direct_Air_Cycle https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_Nuclear_Propulsion#... while we're at it, have a fun tangential short story by Charlie Stross about rockets, missiles, volatile oxidizers, and more, with only a touch of plausible-sounding scifi nonsense: https://www.tor.com/2012/07/20/a-tall-tail/ https://www.tor.com/2012/07/20/a-tall-tail/
obblekk 9y ago
Does anyone else get a sense of de ja vu from the news this week? - Nuclear weapons development, specifically targeted at the US - Trade Tariffs - Improper security classification in the whitehouse - Israel, Iran threatening war - China becomes a dictatorship Feels like we're going backward in time for some reason.
- adventured 9y ago
  It's the inflection switch from globalism, back to nationalism. A substantial increase in military conflict is guaranteed to come from it. We'll also see a massive leap forward in new, particularly stunning technologies again as nations begin to aggressively compete through technology to ensure survival. Nothing drives a leap forward quite like that.
  - analogic 9y ago
    How long till we reach the point where the only viable strategy against the enemy bot ai is to give full control to our bot ai? Even smallest delay would matter so too dangerous to have human in the loop.
    - rtx 9y ago
      Never, since you have asked this question.
    - rocqua 9y ago
      You made me think of roko's bassilisk [1] I must say that I, for one, welcome the rule of our robot overlords. [1] https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Roko's_basilisk https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Roko's_basilisk
    - blackflame7000 9y ago
      Never because when you surrender your freedom the cure will be worse than the disease, always.
  - fallingfrog 9y ago
gaius 9y ago
The joke's on Russia. American anti-missile defences couldn't stop their old missiles anyway!
- adventured 9y ago
  It's baffling why either Russia or China would be concerned about US efforts around missile defense. There's no scenario in the next 20 years where any nation can stop 50 or 100 incoming nukes. I've always assumed it's mostly a propaganda battle, as Russia can't be that stupid. They can't afford to spend what the US can to develop missile defenses over the coming decades, so they want to reassure their people that it's not a problem regardless.
  - blackrock 9y ago
    Have you really thought this through? Did you realize that China is still in a state of civil war with Taiwan? The two had a civil war after WW2. The Taiwan side lost the mainland, and fled to Taiwan. Normally, when you lose a civil war, you don't create a new government. Otherwise, when the United States had their own civil war, then the southern states would have created the Confederate States of America, and slavery would still be alive and legal today. Do you agree with this premise? Taiwan is very strategically important to China. But, the United States is now using Taiwan to contain China. And they are using all the excuses like democracy and all that, but it's easy to see through the propaganda. Otherwise, why isn't Saudi Arabia a democracy by now? If you think through all the angles, then you might actually realize the insane rationality behind China's motives. That said, the United States is not China's enemy. But with the way geopolitics plays out, the United States is now firmly committed to securing Taiwan. Thus, both nations are now going to head into conflict. The thing is, any military conflict between the United States and China, will turn nuclear. Once those missiles start flying, then sell your stocks, because the world is going to burn down. This is a pretty grim analysis, so I hope it never happens.
    - gaius 9y ago
      Well it is not just Taiwan, China also has a beef with Japan, which the US is committed to defending too.
wcarss 9y ago
I'm glad that this story notes the elevated isotope detection levels last year and the possibility that the US detection plane sent up around that time may have been doing some classified investigation of evidence of an engine of this sort. The article sadly (I mean, of course, but still sadly) has nothing conclusive or very new to say on that topic, but it's still interesting to see others are also curious about whether there's a link. Makes me wonder also, though probably a lot less likely of a link, about the other story run by thedrive recently of the released FAA and ATC conversation regarding the unknown, fast moving, large white airplane-like craft that wandered up the west coast late last year. I'm not sure if an infinite range nuclear-reactor-containing "cruise missile"'s visible characteristics would necessarily be "missile-like", i.e. a cigar with small fins, or if it could reasonably at that point just be... an airplane. It would be ballsy as hell for a Russian experimental nuclear-missile-plane to fly deep deep into American airspace in a common corridor with civilian commercial airliners, like, that would seem to be way too far into an insane possibility that would demand a war-like response, and it's far likelier to have been a US craft from a base in the region, but... it would really be the ultimate test of the system's penetrative and evasive capabilities, if it were such a thing. What do other folks think?
- chiph 9y ago
  Running a live test of a nuclear powered aircraft/drone would certainly be an environmental incident (I'm avoiding the use of the word "disaster" until one crashes). Running such a test in the airspace of a potential 1st tier opponent would be madness - it would absolutely be seen as a warlike act and repercussions would be immediate and widespread. It's not like having a moving radiation source would be "stealthy" in any way - after 9/11 many US police departments bought portable Geiger counters so tracking one would just be a matter of correlating the readings.
- Spooky23 9y ago
  Usually UFO sighting clusters are correlated with USAF testing. The 80s for example were mostly cruise missile and stealth fighters. In my area of upstate NY, there were a lot of sightings of tomahawk missiles operating out of Plattsburgh and Rome AFB testing the tercom navigation system. In the 90s, there was some sort of hovering drone and hypersonic aircraft. It’s a reasonable assumption that the military planted or ginned up the aliens narrative to bury the story in plain sight. My first assumption is that this is the same thing.
exabrial 9y ago
I'm curious if the orbital infrared detection satellites we have would see this object. Seems like the theory of operation means it has to be ridiculously hot to work.
n1000 9y ago
Anyone knows of some reading material on how such an engine could technically work? I wonder how a nuclear reactor could create propulsion.
- sctb 9y ago
  I'm no expert, but this has come up in previous discussions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramjet#Nuclear-powered_ramjets https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramjet#Nuclear-powered_ramjets.
- stevenwoo 9y ago
  IIRC in Feynman' Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman, some government folks surveyed the people working on the Manhattan Project for prospective usages of nuclear power to patent and a nuclear powered airplane was one of his first ideas, using the heat from the nuclear plant to heat air for a jet turbine.
  - castratikron 9y ago
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rc9gwPB78lk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rc9gwPB78lk
- samschooler 9y ago
  This article is also quite interesting. On the US version of this temporarily developed in the 60s. More info on this project will be under “Project Pluto” https://jalopnik.com/the-flying-crowbar-the-insane-doomsday-weapon-america-1435286216 https://jalopnik.com/the-flying-crowbar-the-insane-doomsday-...
- rocqua 9y ago
  To a very simple approximation, heating air expands it. If you control the shape of the space around it, you can expand it more in one direction than the other. That generates thrust. This is the idea behind ramjets. Meanwhile, nuclear reactors are hot, and this can be used to heat up air.
desireco42 9y ago
Usually when you are testing things, they will fail a lot. Like SpaceX, a lot of boosters crashed, that doesn't mean it is less awesome what they developed and it worked in the end once they got kinks out. This is weird article.
golergka 9y ago
Why would US bother? All the news about new Russian missiles were mostly for interior propaganda consumption anyway.

44 points by IntronExon 9y ago

Maybe but either way the era of USA unilaterally pushing wars just ended. Russia with their hypersonic nukes and proxy wars wins have just made western imperialism via war and culture have very high costs.

emerged 9y ago
I don't see how this in any way changes the stalemate of mutual assured annihilated.
- behindmyscreen 9y ago
  MAD under ICBMs allowed us to get our weapons off before we were hit. This tech would allow for very little warning and could potentially take out enemy missile sites before launch.
  - IntronExon 9y ago
    Hence fleets of boomers with Trident missiles.
    - behindmyscreen 9y ago
      You think air bases won't be a primary target as well?
      - IntronExon 9y ago
        Boomers = Nuclear Submarines.
        behindmyscreen 9y ago
        Gotcha
adventured 9y ago
Nothing has changed at all in fact. For better or worse. Russia just rattled their sabre because they're desperate. They've recognized an inability to keep up economically with the US and China, and they will fall further and further behind because of that. Russia's population hasn't expanded in nearly four decades. In that time the US has added 100 million people. China added 400 million people. That population expansion is an economic weapon. Russia's economy hasn't expanded since 2006-2007. Putin entirely failed to transition the Russian economy off of dependency on energy prices. Without economic growth, they can't keep spending more on their military. Meanwhile the US and China perpetually expand their economies. The gap between the US and Russia economically has gone from 11 to 1 in 1989, to 15 to 1. And it's worth noting that output gap in 1989 was already extreme, as Russia was effectively a bankrupt nation at that point. That the US has continued to put distance between it and Russia economically, is a massive failure by Putin. Or to put it in another perspective, Canada now has a larger economy than Russia. And then the China story. Well, that's just a joke of a comparison. In 1989 China had an economy 1/3 smaller than Russia. Today it's 10 times larger. It leaves Russia wilting in contrast, they've become a second tier power.
- thegreatcosmo 9y ago
  While your logic makes sense, there is far more to war then economics, otherwise the middle east wouldnt be a mess, and then there is the vietnam war. Something has changed greatly. It is the fall of globalism and the rise of nationalism. Putins reminder he has the will to use MAD is sign of the new times.
- behindmyscreen 9y ago
  With the current anti-immigrant nature of the American right, the US will start to stagnate in population over the next decade if those people are not removed from power.
- meric 9y ago
  I agree with all your points and it makes the US obsession with Russian influence ridiculous IMO.
chiph 9y ago
I'm guessing you're too young to remember the era of MAD, starting in the 1950's going thru 1990 and the fall of the Soviet Union. The emphasis is on "mutual" - both the US and the Soviets had arsenals which were ... excessive. The Chinese did not participate because A) they couldn't without substantial expense, and B) "Go ahead, you guys blow each other up while we watch."

exabrial 9y ago

The good news is, no one wants a nuclear war anymore... at least I hope. I think what changed is largely trade. China, usually the USA's enemy, has benefited enormously by trading with the USA and providing a cheap labor pool for manufacturing after Unions made it too expensive to continue manual manufacturing in the United States. So if my theory is true, it's probably worth allowing vestment in our fellow nuclear superpowers. Seems backwards, but most things in economics and game theory are.

behindmyscreen 9y ago
Unions didn't make it too expensive to manufacture. China just made it way cheaper (slight difference there). A Union made product doesn't increase the cost of the product much, but employing people at wages that provide a moderate income level does reduce profitability.
craftyguy 9y ago
> The good news is, no one wants a nuclear war anymore... Donald seems to really want it. https://mobile.twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/948355557022420992 https://mobile.twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/9483555570...
sehugg 9y ago
The unfortunate thing is that Putin has signaled that he's willing to use tactical nukes in a regional conflict, and the U.S. is signaling back that they're willing to do the same. A tac nuke detonated anywhere would be a globally destabilizing event, and a regional nuclear war would be a catastrophe.
forapurpose 9y ago
> I think what changed is largely trade. Somewhat famously, this belief was widespread before WWI - who would want to fight a war when we're all profiting so much from trade. The two biggest wars in history were fought in the next 35 years. The current US government likes to disregard every rule of international relations (and fire or fire all the professional diplomats). Those rules exist because, while they are frustrating in the short term, they prevent wars and promote progress in the medium-to-long term. Politics and international relations are not under immediate control of political leaders - many didn't want war in Europe, but they had started the mechanism and couldn't stop it. The idea of those rules is to never get in that position again.

roywiggins 9y ago

And that's why we didn't test one ourselves back in the 60s. You need a special kind of attitude to be willing to fly one of these things over your own country. Or perhaps just ready access to barely-populated Arctic regions where nobody's watching you drop nuclear reactors around. These things are the most over-the-top method of beating missile defenses. A normal response would be to just deploy more missiles, which are cheaper and faster to build than defense, so it's easy to keep up. But no, apparently they went in this direction.

PoachedSausage 9y ago
Putin has a certain reputation to maintain? The simulation with warheads dropping on Florida reminded me of the old idea of dropping Tungsten rods from orbit onto your enemies, I'm surprised they didn't propose that one too.
- kahnpro 9y ago
  "Rods from God"
eveningcoffee 9y ago
>These things are the most over-the-top method of beating missile defenses. A normal response would be to just deploy more missiles Deploying more missiles would be visible and would clearly demonstrate aggressive intentions.
- mannykannot 9y ago
  In a way that saying you are developing nuclear-powered ones does not?
  - eveningcoffee 9y ago
    I think if you count public opinion then it may be more acceptable to have small number of advanced cruise missiles than to have more missiles. For example what sounds more aggressive, 10 cruise missiles or 1000 missiles?

clon 9y ago

> At the most basic conceptual level, the weapon could conceivably reach supersonic speeds, fly at very low altitudes, and have effectively unlimited range thanks to its nuclear powerplant If the Ruskies have developed a reactionless rocket engine capable of crashing further down range than experimental error, I would keep silent as well /s

voidmain 9y ago
Reactionless? Presumably the reaction mass would be... air.
- clon 9y ago
  Oh my.. Never thought of that. Surely it does not use the atmosphere as the primary circuit coolant?
  - TheOtherHobbes 9y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Pluto https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Pluto
    - behindmyscreen 9y ago
      If only there were a good way of heating the air without contaminating it with radioactive emissions. If we could figure that out, such an engine would be useful in many non war related jobs.
  - wcarss 9y ago
    That's one of the ways these could run, yes. But hopefully not the way this one is -- there are direct exchange and indirect heating methods that have been researched. Check out Project Pluto on Wikipedia [1], and the Direct Air Cycle part of the Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion page [2]. From the Pluto page, "The principle behind the nuclear ramjet was relatively simple: motion of the vehicle pushed air in through the front of the vehicle (ram effect), a nuclear reactor heated the air, and then the hot air expanded at high speed out through a nozzle at the back, providing thrust." 1 - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Pluto https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Pluto 2 - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_Nuclear_Propulsion#Direct_Air_Cycle https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_Nuclear_Propulsion#... while we're at it, have a fun tangential short story by Charlie Stross about rockets, missiles, volatile oxidizers, and more, with only a touch of plausible-sounding scifi nonsense: https://www.tor.com/2012/07/20/a-tall-tail/ https://www.tor.com/2012/07/20/a-tall-tail/

obblekk 9y ago

Does anyone else get a sense of de ja vu from the news this week? - Nuclear weapons development, specifically targeted at the US - Trade Tariffs - Improper security classification in the whitehouse - Israel, Iran threatening war - China becomes a dictatorship Feels like we're going backward in time for some reason.

adventured 9y ago
It's the inflection switch from globalism, back to nationalism. A substantial increase in military conflict is guaranteed to come from it. We'll also see a massive leap forward in new, particularly stunning technologies again as nations begin to aggressively compete through technology to ensure survival. Nothing drives a leap forward quite like that.
- analogic 9y ago
  How long till we reach the point where the only viable strategy against the enemy bot ai is to give full control to our bot ai? Even smallest delay would matter so too dangerous to have human in the loop.
  - rtx 9y ago
    Never, since you have asked this question.
  - rocqua 9y ago
    You made me think of roko's bassilisk [1] I must say that I, for one, welcome the rule of our robot overlords. [1] https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Roko's_basilisk https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Roko's_basilisk
  - blackflame7000 9y ago
    Never because when you surrender your freedom the cure will be worse than the disease, always.
- fallingfrog 9y ago

gaius 9y ago

The joke's on Russia. American anti-missile defences couldn't stop their old missiles anyway!

adventured 9y ago
It's baffling why either Russia or China would be concerned about US efforts around missile defense. There's no scenario in the next 20 years where any nation can stop 50 or 100 incoming nukes. I've always assumed it's mostly a propaganda battle, as Russia can't be that stupid. They can't afford to spend what the US can to develop missile defenses over the coming decades, so they want to reassure their people that it's not a problem regardless.
- blackrock 9y ago
  Have you really thought this through? Did you realize that China is still in a state of civil war with Taiwan? The two had a civil war after WW2. The Taiwan side lost the mainland, and fled to Taiwan. Normally, when you lose a civil war, you don't create a new government. Otherwise, when the United States had their own civil war, then the southern states would have created the Confederate States of America, and slavery would still be alive and legal today. Do you agree with this premise? Taiwan is very strategically important to China. But, the United States is now using Taiwan to contain China. And they are using all the excuses like democracy and all that, but it's easy to see through the propaganda. Otherwise, why isn't Saudi Arabia a democracy by now? If you think through all the angles, then you might actually realize the insane rationality behind China's motives. That said, the United States is not China's enemy. But with the way geopolitics plays out, the United States is now firmly committed to securing Taiwan. Thus, both nations are now going to head into conflict. The thing is, any military conflict between the United States and China, will turn nuclear. Once those missiles start flying, then sell your stocks, because the world is going to burn down. This is a pretty grim analysis, so I hope it never happens.
  - gaius 9y ago
    Well it is not just Taiwan, China also has a beef with Japan, which the US is committed to defending too.

wcarss 9y ago

I'm glad that this story notes the elevated isotope detection levels last year and the possibility that the US detection plane sent up around that time may have been doing some classified investigation of evidence of an engine of this sort. The article sadly (I mean, of course, but still sadly) has nothing conclusive or very new to say on that topic, but it's still interesting to see others are also curious about whether there's a link. Makes me wonder also, though probably a lot less likely of a link, about the other story run by thedrive recently of the released FAA and ATC conversation regarding the unknown, fast moving, large white airplane-like craft that wandered up the west coast late last year. I'm not sure if an infinite range nuclear-reactor-containing "cruise missile"'s visible characteristics would necessarily be "missile-like", i.e. a cigar with small fins, or if it could reasonably at that point just be... an airplane. It would be ballsy as hell for a Russian experimental nuclear-missile-plane to fly deep deep into American airspace in a common corridor with civilian commercial airliners, like, that would seem to be way too far into an insane possibility that would demand a war-like response, and it's far likelier to have been a US craft from a base in the region, but... it would really be the ultimate test of the system's penetrative and evasive capabilities, if it were such a thing. What do other folks think?

chiph 9y ago
Running a live test of a nuclear powered aircraft/drone would certainly be an environmental incident (I'm avoiding the use of the word "disaster" until one crashes). Running such a test in the airspace of a potential 1st tier opponent would be madness - it would absolutely be seen as a warlike act and repercussions would be immediate and widespread. It's not like having a moving radiation source would be "stealthy" in any way - after 9/11 many US police departments bought portable Geiger counters so tracking one would just be a matter of correlating the readings.
Spooky23 9y ago
Usually UFO sighting clusters are correlated with USAF testing. The 80s for example were mostly cruise missile and stealth fighters. In my area of upstate NY, there were a lot of sightings of tomahawk missiles operating out of Plattsburgh and Rome AFB testing the tercom navigation system. In the 90s, there was some sort of hovering drone and hypersonic aircraft. It’s a reasonable assumption that the military planted or ginned up the aliens narrative to bury the story in plain sight. My first assumption is that this is the same thing.

exabrial 9y ago

I'm curious if the orbital infrared detection satellites we have would see this object. Seems like the theory of operation means it has to be ridiculously hot to work.

n1000 9y ago

Anyone knows of some reading material on how such an engine could technically work? I wonder how a nuclear reactor could create propulsion.

sctb 9y ago
I'm no expert, but this has come up in previous discussions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramjet#Nuclear-powered_ramjets https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramjet#Nuclear-powered_ramjets.
stevenwoo 9y ago
IIRC in Feynman' Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman, some government folks surveyed the people working on the Manhattan Project for prospective usages of nuclear power to patent and a nuclear powered airplane was one of his first ideas, using the heat from the nuclear plant to heat air for a jet turbine.
- castratikron 9y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rc9gwPB78lk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rc9gwPB78lk
samschooler 9y ago
This article is also quite interesting. On the US version of this temporarily developed in the 60s. More info on this project will be under “Project Pluto” https://jalopnik.com/the-flying-crowbar-the-insane-doomsday-weapon-america-1435286216 https://jalopnik.com/the-flying-crowbar-the-insane-doomsday-...
rocqua 9y ago
To a very simple approximation, heating air expands it. If you control the shape of the space around it, you can expand it more in one direction than the other. That generates thrust. This is the idea behind ramjets. Meanwhile, nuclear reactors are hot, and this can be used to heat up air.

desireco42 9y ago

Usually when you are testing things, they will fail a lot. Like SpaceX, a lot of boosters crashed, that doesn't mean it is less awesome what they developed and it worked in the end once they got kinks out. This is weird article.

golergka 9y ago

Why would US bother? All the news about new Russian missiles were mostly for interior propaganda consumption anyway.