We already built a nuclear powered planes and had nuclear powered jet engines that were supposed to Static bombers during the cold war before Air-Air refueling and the launch of Sputnik-1 made strategic nuclear bombers obsolete and funding was cut and programs were shut down as the Cold war Era where ICBM's came into play but in the 1950's 60's and early NEVA/ NRX/XE Nuclear rockets were pretty amazing but budget cuts and the choice to fund the Shuttle program instead of expanding the Apollo program and instead of pushing the limits of space travel we limited ourselves to LEO and nuclear powered planes where to heavy with all the lead shielding and weight added to make to protect the crew from prolonged exposure to high levels of radiation and were too dangerous to fly.
molten salt reactor (MSR) is a class of
nuclear fission reactors in which the primary
coolant, or even the fuel itself, is a
molten salt mixture. MSRs run at higher temperatures than water-cooled reactors for higher
thermodynamic efficiency, while staying at low
vapor pressure.
The early
Aircraft Reactor Experiment (1954) was primarily motivated by the small size that the design could provide, while the
Molten-Salt Reactor Experiment (1965–1969) was a prototype for a
thorium fuel cycle breeder reactor nuclear power plant.
The
liquid fluoride thorium reactor (
acronym LFTR; spoken as
lifter) is a type of
thermal breeder reactor. LFTRs use the
thorium fuel cycle with a
fluoride-based, molten, liquid salt for fuel. It can achieve high
operating temperatures at
atmospheric pressure.
LFTR is a type of
thorium molten salt reactor (TMSR).
Molten-salt-fueled reactors (MSRs) supply the
nuclear fuel in the form of a molten salt mixture. They should not be confused with
molten salt-cooled high temperature reactors (fluoride high-temperature reactors, FHRs) that use a solid fuel. Molten salt reactors, as a class, include both burners and breeders in fast or thermal spectra, using fluoride or chloride salt-based fuels and a range of fissile or fertile consumables. LFTRs are defined by the use of fluoride fuel salts and the breeding of
thorium into
uranium-233 in the thermal spectrum.
In a LFTR, thorium and uranium-233 are dissolved in carrier salts, forming a liquid fuel. In a typical operation, the liquid is pumped between a critical core and an external
heat exchanger where the heat is transferred to a nonradioactive secondary salt. The secondary salt then transfers its heat to a
steam turbine or
closed-cycle gas turbine. This technology was first investigated at the
Oak Ridge National Laboratory Molten-Salt Reactor Experiment in the 1960s. It has recently been the subject of a renewed interest worldwide.
Japan, China, the UK and private US, Czech, Canadian and Australian companies have expressed intent to develop and commercialize the technology. LFTRs differ from other power reactors in almost every aspect: they use thorium rather than uranium, operate at low pressure, fuel by pumping without shutdown, use a salt coolant and produce higher operating temperatures. These distinctive characteristics give rise to many potential advantages, as well as design challenges.
NERVA demonstrated that
nuclear thermal rocket engines were a feasible and reliable tool for space exploration, and at the end of 1968 SNPO certified that the latest NERVA engine, the NRX/XE, met the requirements for a manned Mars mission. Although NERVA engines were built and tested as much as possible with flight-certified components and the engine was deemed ready for integration into a spacecraft, much of the U.S. space program was cancelled by the Nixon Administration before a manned visit to Mars could take place.
NERVA was considered by the AEC, SNPO and NASA to be a highly successful program; it met or exceeded its program goals. Its principal objective was to "establish a technology base for nuclear rocket engine systems to be utilized in the design and development of propulsion systems for space mission application".
Virtually all space mission plans that use nuclear thermal rockets use derivative designs from the NERVA NRX or Pewee.
Source
Thorium-based nuclear power - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
NERVA - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Man one thing that plwhit pointed out is that we had alot more excitement towards space travel and nuclear Fission in popular science and popular mechanics was seen for the positive thin that at the time the articles were so were able to push peoples imagination and learn about history.
Plus looking back at history though old articles and movies is kind of fun since most of the thing never happen or something new comes along and changes our thinking like Back to the Future seems pretty silly while Start Trek and STT using tablets and have ability to have audio and video face to face chats and access to the internet to do a search or take a picture or video and post instantly to YouTube or tweet about it using social media.
Where flying cars and Hoover boards and people texting or using their smart devices not looking where they are going seems dangerous and but the internet is great to learn and research about history where thorium is not new and has already been proven to be viable just it was never scaled up to commercial applications.
But it is making a come back which is k to meet our growing energy needs or alteast replace our aging Gen II and Gen III Reactors with something that has already been proven viable reducing risk and keeping the cost to fund it down.
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