Imagine THIS in traveller...

[Trent]

http://www.aviation-history.com/articles/nuke-american.htm

Starting in the late 1940's, the american military became obsessed with the uses of atomic power, and seriously considered the construction of a nuclear powered bomber aircraft with unlimited range and duration.

Now I do NOT mean a plane with electric engines powered by a nuclear reactor, a'la a nuclear submarine, but a plane using a nuclear reactor to superheat air and use the air as thrust.

Yes, they actually planned to build a plane that used air intakes to suck air in, pass it directly through a high temperature fission reactor core and blow it out the rear as thrust...

Ok, ok, you play traveller, you've got the intelligence to have already seen some MAJOR problems with this idea, but, they spent several years and half a billion dollars thru the 1950's working on this and building parts for it, including a functional reactor.

Anyway, I was wondering if there'd ever be a case in traveller where something like this nightmare would ever be built and used? I'd guess it would only built by a low TL culture, maybe, that didn't have antigravs, reactionless thrusters and such. I was wondering of a fusion reactor would provide enough heat to make the idea work, without the associated radiation and contamination issues, but then again some people say that fusion power in traveller is more like cold fusion and not hot fusion.

 

[Horatius]

This particular technical monstrosity strikes me as something that (in a Traveller setting) would be built as an act of desperation. Possibly during the Black Wars period. (the time of Survival Margin, Hard Times and 3rd ed.)

You could make a cese for something like this being built by a society that hadn't developed antigrav or for some reason didn't have enough deuterium/tritium to create economically feasable fusion power plants, or the technology to create a more sustainable power cell.

The only thing that might have been worse was Project Pluto (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Pluto ) or Project NERVA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NERVA). But luckily cooler heads prevailed.

 

[Trent]

Wow, you managed to find refs I never caught. "Project pluto"? Have to look that one up.

As to worse than this, how about project orion, the old "Spacecraft propelled by mini nukes being detonated behind it" idea?

Back to this beast, I thought of one possible use, if you needed to do it: A gas giant probe meant to last a while and move around a lot. I suppose something like this could use the heat from a nuclear pile to warm a chamber of gas to keep it afloat, and then use the propulsion effect to move around.

So, if you ever needed a cheap, simple, rugged, somewhat low tech gas giant atmospheric probe meant to last and move a lot, this might be your boy. Then again why anyone would need something like that, the GM needs to figure that one out for himself.

Then again, in traveller this would be a hell of a way to discover that the gas giant had a sentient population, one that objected to the side effects of this mode of propulsion...:rofl:


EDIT: Project pluto sounds like a minor variant of this, and even harder to do. Here's a link to project orion, the old "Nuclear cherry bombs under a bucket" idea: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propulsion))

OK, so it may not be fair to compare PO to this horror. I mean, PO could work in space, well away from earth or anyone, as a probe launcher to send something to another star in maybe a few decades.

Better hope there is no advanced life in that system, tho, sending something that decelerates by detonating nukes could be considered a hostile act.

 

[Andrew Boulton]

Orion (or Daedalus) is fine as a space drive, but insane for atmospheric use.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3Lxx2VAYi8

BTW, FF&S1/2 has rules for them.

 

[Trent]

Orion (or Daedalus) is fine as a space drive, but insane for atmospheric use.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3Lxx2VAYi8

BTW, FF&S1/2 has rules for them.

That's what I said about orion, space yes, planet, no!

BTW, in niven's SF movel "Footfall" they used orion type spacecraft, launched from earth, to attack an alien mothership during an invasion.

 

[Lapthorn]

So, if you ever needed a cheap, simple, rugged, somewhat low tech gas giant atmospheric probe meant to last and move a lot, this might be your boy. Then again why anyone would need something like that, the GM needs to figure that one out for himself.

Sounds like a good basis for a gas giant atmosphere processor in a non-M-drive setting. Either hydrogen for starship fuel, or He3 for fusion. When full, it blasts itself up to orbit for collection. Or probably more efficiently, have a permanent gas mining station of some sort (either a cruiser or a blimp) with shuttles powered by these motors ferrying up the processed gas.