Last night I was digging through some of my old Popular Mechanics and Popular Science magazines and stumbled across an old artical about a Top Secret US Air Force project to build a Nuclear powered Flying Saucer that could deliver Nuclear weapons. the artical didn't reveal much info but the mention of Nuclear power gives us a look at some much more real and near term solutions to powering a Flying Disk.

Tim

I have seen that article. It said the craft was powered by a small nuclear reactor and an engine that extracted energy from flowing molten metal. The weird thing about the metal drive is that people have been finding pools of molten metal all over the world, also people have been seeing molten metal fall from the sky. When the metal was tested they found that is was very pure, more pure than found in nature. I think I was watching a TV show and it said that a man found some of this metal and sent it in for testing but he never got the results because it was stolen or something like that.

That story above is a little strange considering that the guy was yelled at by 2 people onboard that tr-3b. but to tell you the truth i really don't blame the guy for shooting at the thing. how in the hell would he know what it is?

in that story then, it mentions a silent black hellicoptor, one of my best friends has seen one of these, and they are indeed allmost completely silent (apart from a slight humm/buzz) untill they get low enough to disturb the grass and trees witch russle when the air hits them.

At first I thought it was an alien UFO and was genuinely startled by it. However, I now believe it was an experimental military platform for transporting a small fleet of black helicopters that leave and enter out of the top of a huge silent floating triangle the size of a football field. A rigid airship if you will.

Wow, quite a report! Such a platform would be great for transporting these 'anonymous' helicopters around the world to run covert ops...

It would be about time don't you think? How long have we had Nuclear Subs, Nuclear Missiles, nuclear Powre plants.
It was only a matter of time.

You all know that nucleal powered aircraft aren't a new idea the USAF and NASA have both been plying with the idea for years.

Tim

Both US and USSR had nuclear powered test planes, USSR flew one modified Tu-95 Bear that was fully nuclear powered..

Hmmm...

Liquid sodium is used as a heat transfer fluid in certain reactor designs, so the liquid metal deal isn't so bad... The problems with the nuclear powered aircraft were weight (sheilding is heavy) and the obvious problems of dealing with a crash.

"Stop shooting at us you idiot" is priceless.

I really hope that we are testing some kind of antigravity technology in the military, but, owing to the lack sf solid theory, I am doubtful. That said, some things in technology are easier done than said.

Yes, it does seem that the aircraft would be dangerous to fly.

Originally posted by jetsetter
Yes, it does seem that the aircraft would be dangerous to fly.

And unfortunately this is the very thing that caused the moratorium on nuclear propulsion development...fear. Fear from congress, fear from the general populace.

We should have been heavily in R&D on nuclear propulsion systems all along, but when you get a mandate that no nuclear-powered craft can be launched, you're pretty much pickled on development.

The next "barrier" to advancements in propulsive systems (whether you are talking about military aircraft, or space systems) that MUST be broken down is the US populace's scaredy-cat mentality. Do you remember right after the Columbia incident, when all the debris was all over East Texas and NASA had to issue warnings to stay away from it because of hazardous chemicals? Well, if you were watching closely there was briefly discussion that there could be unspent hydrazine from the APUs. And there for a while there was this flury of "OMG! They're endangering our lives every time they re-enter!!!"

How do we proceed forward when we as a society are scared of every little thing that could be a bit hazardous? Heck, IF the Columbia was lost because of the foam you can place part of the blame of that back on this mentality. The original foam was fine...accept it wasn't "ozone friendly"...so they had to change to "Sierra Club approved" foam that had problems from the get-go.

THIS is why I believe that a intermediate post must be established if we are to achieve some relatively "long distance" space travel. If we had an outpost on the moon, say, we would be able to launch with alternative propulsion systems.

I truly beleive we are behind the curve of technology here. We should absolutely be creating and manufacturing nuclear engines...

The population should realize they are in more danger from driving to the store than they are from ANYTHING nuclear...

P...
m...

[Edited on 8-31-2003 by Springer]

We ARE behind the curve, and it IS due to the mentality you reference, Springer.

When we lost those 7 astronauts we lost national treasures, but we also lost 7 people that knew full well they might not come back. This mentality has not been kept before the general populace's minds in the past 2 decades. They freak out every time they hear some one could be harmed.

The point of the civilian part of space exploration(NASA) is to better peoples lives here. GPS, experiments on cell cultures in zero-g etc. Killing people isn't real a good way to help people.

Originally posted by TheManWithThePlan
The point of the civilian part of space exploration(NASA) is to better peoples lives here. GPS, experiments on cell cultures in zero-g etc. Killing people isn't real a good way to help people.

The point is NOT to kill people, and I won't give any more attention to that statement than that. The point is that the brave people who agree to go on these missions know full-well that they are going against the odds.

Nuff said.

There was a report from the mid 80s about a family that had a close encounter with a UFO near Houston Texas. During that encounter, everyone in the car (mother, grandmother and grandchild) suffered varying amounts of radiation poisoning, decreasing in severity from the grandmother, who was outside the car, to the child, who was in the backseat, and furthest from the UFO.

I remember that the family contacted the USAF and went so far as to sue for damages, but could not prove any connection.

I believe that this is the only documented case of UFO close encounters where people sustained deffinite injuries related to radiation poisoning.

It is interesting to note that the course taken by the UFO was coming in from the Gulf of Mexico, northward, directly towards Bergstrom AFB in Austin Texas...

I really feel that this topic is an insult to "aircraft projects" forum and should be moved where it belongs: "aliens & ufos" ...

Greetings all.

GREAT thats ALL we need. nukes in space run by a gov that nobody seems to deny the fact that it routeenly hides the facts from its people and the world who may or may not be in a "special relationship" with f-ing alien lifeforms who is at WAR with serveral countries at any one time and who dont give a rats ass about the planets ecosystem because money comes first.
not to mention the fact that if getting into space for a "routine" mission includes "routine" f--kups with debris strewn accross 100ds of km well...thats bad enough but if it was nuke powered well then...i guess they wouldent be launching from canaveral but rather from ....say one of the new conolys? Afghanistan? Iraq?
hah SICK