Why aren't there any nuclear powered aircraft?

Question

submarines and Aircraft carrier are powered for their entire lifespan. If there is such an indispensable source of power, why arent we engineering it for other usefule things such as cars and aircraft and that includes making it safe

Answer 1

Reactors heat water to spin turbines that create electricity. Might be a bit heavy and outsized for a plane?????
As far as cars go, hydrogen fuel cells will very soon be in the picture, they create 0 pollution, the only holdback currently is the infrastructure to recharge them. You will see them a lot in the next 10 years. Boiling water to spin a turbine in a car just isn't a viable option currently, same with a plane.

Answer 2

Actually there have been nuclear powered aircraft engines built!

Los Alamos Scientific Laboratories (LASL) had a program back in the late 50's to mid 70's. My dad worked for them at the test facility near Las Vegas Nevada from '62 to '73.

The program was a government attempt to create a usable nuclear rocket engine. I still have some pictures of some of the test firings. An odd note also, dad (and others) would take glass objects wrapped in foil and place them near the engines during testing. The glass would turn colors. Most would turn a brown color, but blue and green would also happen! I grew up drinking from "nuked" glasses, I wonder if that's what happened to my hair?

The reactors I remember dad talking of, and the ones I have photos of were the Phoebus I, and Phoebus II.

Nuclear ships are more practical due to the fact that if an accident occurs, entire cities won't be at risk. Remember Three Mile Island (dad also worked for the company that made the boilers) and Chernobyl? Can you imagine the destruction that could happen if New York on 9-11 was hit with two nuclear powered 747's?

One day, nuclear power will be more abundant, but until we get a better hold on it, and the waste it generates, it must be used frugally.

Answer 3

A nuclear reactor is a very large piece of machinery. It won't fit in a car or airplane. And it's heavy too, so even a large aircraft would have very little cargo capacity left. Also, a ship or submarine is not likely to run into an immovable object at 70-700 miles per hour. No matter how save you made the reactor, a plane crash would still break it open and spew radioactive material far and wide.

Answer 4

there was a test facility built, and a few test engines built to study the feasibility of a nuclear powered jet engine. the firs thing they found was that it worked, and worked pretty well. one problem though was that the exhaust was radioactive. not in large amounts though. the second part of the project was to see if it was feasible to have a nuclear reactor in an airplane. at the time the only airplane that could lift a nuclear reactor into the air was the B36 peacemaker. there was one flight with a live nuclear reactor. the weight of the shielding, and the reactor itself was almost too much even for that behemoth. there were concerns over the possibility of what would happen if the plane did crash.

Answer 5

fallout
weight
attrition

the original designs and conceptions of nuclear powered aircraft were focusing upon the vaporizing water by the nuclear energy. thus a lot of fallout or radioactive water would leave the aircraft engine.
all the nuclear reactors are bulky, everything that is worth of using as a neutron decelerator/moderator is HEAVY. Lead for example. it would be too heavy to construct the effective and safe reactor to power the aircraft.
the reactor provides constant power. it is usefull for a ship or submarine travelling constant speed and with constant energy consumption. aircraft's power consumption is differing much more. you would have to waste a lot of energy during descend for example. thats why.
finally no one wants an aircraft falling into the town, unfortunately this still happens. can you imagine the "OOPs our reactor nuked lower Manhattan a bit... " news?

Answer 6

The NB-36H. This was a B-36 bomber with a reactor on board, powering the turbine engines. It flew successfully, however, the chance of a crash contaminating a large area resulted in the decision to abandon the project.

Answer 7

A nuclear reactor is very large and very complicated. It takes teams of people to run them safely. Obviously that isnt practical in an aircraft

Answer 8

Im not sure. But, I just saw an aircraft that had 6 pale lights under it in a inverted V formation. It flew without any noise above me. So, maybe there's already an experimental plane being tested that runs on a nuclear battery like AstroBoy.

Answer 9

In the 1950's they built a prototype nuclear plane. It flew but was to heavy to be useful and it's performance was not great. Plus the danger of having a crash and spreading radiation.

Answer 10

Its a matter of size and technology.

Nuclear powered naval craft use the controlled nuclear reaction to drive steam turbines to produce energy. Not practical in aircraft because of weight.

Ion propulsion for space craft has been theorized.