Posted on 04/02/2012 12:43:30 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
American scientists have drawn up plans for a new generation of nuclear-powered drones capable of flying over remote regions of the world for months on end without refuelling.
The blueprints for the new drones, which have been developed by Sandia National Laboratories – the US government's principal nuclear research and development agency – and defence contractor Northrop Grumman, were designed to increase flying time "from days to months" while making more power available for operating equipment, according to a project summary published by Sandia.
"It's pretty terrifying prospect," said Chris Coles of Drone Wars UK, which campaigns against the increasing use of drones for both military and civilian purposes. "Drones are much less safe than other aircraft and tend to crash a lot. There is a major push by this industry to increase the use of drones and both the public and government are struggling to keep up with the implications."
The highly sensitive research into what is termed "ultra-persistence technologies" set out to solve three problems associated with drones: insufficient "hang time" over a potential target; lack of power for running sophisticated surveillance and weapons systems; and lack of communications capacity.
The Sandia-Northrop Grumman team looked at numerous different power systems for large- and medium-sized drones before settling on a nuclear solution. Northrop Grumman is known to have patented a drone equipped with a helium-cooled nuclear reactor as long ago as 1986, and has previously worked on nuclear projects with the US air force research laboratory. Designs for nuclear-powered aircraft are known to go back as far as the 1950s.
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
Can it deliver a pizza tho?
The sky is the limit.
From January
—
Drones: the next generation
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/jan/16/drones-next-generation?intcmp=239
The Taranis, Mantis, Zephyr and Herti aircraft are designed for a diverse list of both military and civilian tasks
—
Gonna need a cheat sheet to identify all of them..
Nuclear chopper drone will set a pizza right on your front porch. No pain no strain.
I’m no greenpeace hippy, but am I the only one here with a problem with the idea of having scores of nuclear reactors flying around over our heads?
Didn’t the Iranians recently take control of one of our drones and capture it?
“Tom Swift and His Flying Lab” - published 1954
....And "losing" a few to the taliban? No thanks, I like my nukes delivered via B-52!
UAV’s are being developed all the time. The only thing different in this article is their allegation of nukes being a payload. Not going to happen. When the NGB (Next Generation Bomber) was being considered a few years back, initially there was a question by the contractor's about the NGB being manned or unmanned. Manned was the answer—there would be NO unmanned aircraft nuke delivery platforms.
They aren’t talking about delivery, just power.
Oh, my mistake. Just went with the headline.
Note to self: Read article first before commenting.
People, don’t fall for this fake looney left story.
It probably originated from a bullet point on a Powerpoint chart (we used to call them “meatballs”).
Nobody in the National Labs or Pentagon is gonna propose flying nuke reactors.
This is not real news. It is leftist propaganda.
I know. One of my former employers was building the nuke powered bomber when it was canceled.
We ended up with one awesome hanger, though.
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