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> "[...] before ICBM progress obsoleted the concept." I'm afraid that anti-ICBM defenses and the availability of reliable auto-pilot technology made the concep

> "[...] before ICBM progress obsoleted the concept." I'm afraid that anti-ICBM defenses and the availability of reliable auto-pilot technology made the concept of a nuclear powered planes relevant again: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9M730_Burevestnik https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9M730_Burevestnik

imglorp 6y ago
First of all that's a very important article people should be aware of: around the ABM treaty, nuclear _powered_ cruise missiles, and maybe some deaths developing that tech. This is just last year, Putin driven. Second of all, it's not clear why it needs to be nuclear powered. Our 1970's subsonic cruise missiles are terrain-following for 2500km at 30m AGL. You can throw them from trucks or ships or planes and go well into someone's territory. A fair assumption is that everyones' are better now in all axes. The point is you don't need the price/risk of unlimited range, unless your goal is to terrorize and poison everything on the way to your target.
- acidburnNSA 6y ago
  We had some nuclear scramjets in the Project Pluto era. I think one nice thing about them in the military sense is that they can go REALLY fast for a pretty long time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Pluto https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Pluto
  - sandworm101 6y ago
    They were doomed. The issue was heat. At supersonic speeds air friction heats the missile. Without fuel being burnt there is no way to dump the heat off the missile. Regardless of heat from the engine, after a few hours air friction would see the entire thing glowing red, the "thermal thicket".
Gravityloss 6y ago
There's enough energy in kerosene though that regular cruise missiles are plenty dangerous...
- liability 6y ago
  Depends entirely on what you want to do. If Russia wanted to hit a missile silo in Nebraska with a [supersonic] cruise missile they'd need to sneak an Oscar up the Mississippi (which is implausible if not impossible.) Granits have less than a thousand kilometers range, so realistically the only way Russia could strike at the middle of America is with ballistic missiles. ABM tech calls even that into question, hence their recent 'superweapon' projects like Skyfall and Poseidon.

imglorp 6y ago

First of all that's a very important article people should be aware of: around the ABM treaty, nuclear _powered_ cruise missiles, and maybe some deaths developing that tech. This is just last year, Putin driven. Second of all, it's not clear why it needs to be nuclear powered. Our 1970's subsonic cruise missiles are terrain-following for 2500km at 30m AGL. You can throw them from trucks or ships or planes and go well into someone's territory. A fair assumption is that everyones' are better now in all axes. The point is you don't need the price/risk of unlimited range, unless your goal is to terrorize and poison everything on the way to your target.

acidburnNSA 6y ago
We had some nuclear scramjets in the Project Pluto era. I think one nice thing about them in the military sense is that they can go REALLY fast for a pretty long time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Pluto https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Pluto
- sandworm101 6y ago
  They were doomed. The issue was heat. At supersonic speeds air friction heats the missile. Without fuel being burnt there is no way to dump the heat off the missile. Regardless of heat from the engine, after a few hours air friction would see the entire thing glowing red, the "thermal thicket".

Gravityloss 6y ago

There's enough energy in kerosene though that regular cruise missiles are plenty dangerous...

liability 6y ago
Depends entirely on what you want to do. If Russia wanted to hit a missile silo in Nebraska with a [supersonic] cruise missile they'd need to sneak an Oscar up the Mississippi (which is implausible if not impossible.) Granits have less than a thousand kilometers range, so realistically the only way Russia could strike at the middle of America is with ballistic missiles. ABM tech calls even that into question, hence their recent 'superweapon' projects like Skyfall and Poseidon.