Fusion rockets in atmosphere

I was cleaning up my hard disk and found this gem from when I received the
`skunk-works' mailing list.  It reminded me of the thread a month or so ago
about using the fusion powered rockets as weapons.
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To: [email removed]
Subject: Project Pluto - nuclear powered missile
Date: Tue, 20 Oct 92 16:59:01 -0500
From: "Philip R. Moyer" [email removed]


Are you one of those people who think nobody would ever design a nuclear
propulsion system for use on Earth?  Read on....

SLAM - Supersonic Low Altitude Missile

The design called for a missle powered by a nuclear ramjet and was named
Project Pluto.  The project was started at Lawrence Livermore National
Labs on January 1, 1957.

Pluto was to be launched from ground by solid rocket boosters until
clear of friendly territory at at cruise speed, then the reactor was
turned on.  Flight plan was to cruise in circles over an ocean until
the "go" signal was received, then dive to low level and penetrate the
target country.  The reactor was unshielded, so it was highly radioactive.
It also spewed fission products out the back as it flew.

Planned speed was Mach 3.

Some project team members were:
        Ted Merkle, project leader
        Ethan Platt, engineer
        Blake Myers, head of LLNL's propulsion engineering
        Harry Reynolds, project physicst for Tory
        Jim Hadley, physicist
        William Moran, fuel element production manager
        Chuck Barnett, Tory test facility director

Pluto would use terrain comparison guidance (TERCOM) and carried 12 warheads
to strike multiple targets.  The vehicle would then fly patterns around the
target country, distributing radiocative debris, until the reactor was
completely eroded and the vehicle crashed.

Engineering challenges:
        - aerodynamic pressures five times that on the X-15
        - heat erosion of the reactor and control elements
        - ingestion of rain/snow/salt air at low altitudes/high speeds

Nicknamed the "Flying Crowbar" because of its low complexity and high
durability.

Chance-Vaught had the contract for the airframe and Marquardt Aircraft had
the contract for the ramjet (minus the reactor).  Ted Merkle was responsible
for the design of the 500 MW reactor.

Nuclear ramjet efficiencies increase with temperature, so Pluto's ramjet
was designed to operate at 2500 degrees Fahrenheit.  Metals at that time
could not reliably withstand those temperatures, so the fuel elements in
the reactor were made of ceramics.  They were fabricated by the Coor's
Ceramic Company of Golden, Colorado.  [While making cermaic liners for
vats in breweries, Adolf Coors thought perhaps he was in the wrong business,
so he built a brewery next to his cermaics factory.  You may have heard of
it.... :-]   The reactor's code name was Tory.

There were many unknowns in the Tory/Marquardt design, so they built two
prototypes and tested them at the 8 square mile Site 401 at Jackass Flat in
Nevada.  Site 401 had a 2 mile autonomous railroad, a remote controlled
disassembly and analysis building, and the test stands.  To build the concrete
walls of the disassembly building, they bought an aggregate mine.  The
compressed air support structure was built of 25 miles of oil well casing.
The compressed air system was charged with compressors borrowed from the
Navy's submarine facility in Groton, Connecticut.  A five minute full power
test would require about a ton of air a minute.

Two test runs were performed.  The first, Tory-IIA, was on May 14, 1961.  The
system ran for a few seconds, and much less than it's rated power, but it
did not explode (as there was some concern it might).

Tory-IIC was tested in May of 1964.  It was started twice.  The second start
ran for five minutes, produced 513 Megawatts, and had a thrust of 35,000 lbs.

Project cancelled on July 1, 1964.  ICBMS were cheaper and faster.

Epilogue:

Ted Merkle died of liver cancer after inventing the CAT scanner to watch the
progress of his disease.

Harry Reynolds now works at Rockwell on SDI.

Jim Hadley is still at LLNL, working on detecting nuclear tests/explosions
from orbit.

The Tory reactors are entombed in Nevada, where they will remain for several
thousand years.

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Mark Urbin  Racal-Interlan   Boxborough, MA  These opinions are mine.
"You won't settle for putting Susan B. Anthony on the new dollar then?"
Justice Rehnquist, to Ruth Bader Ginsburg in a 1978 sex-discrimination case
oral argument
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