In this elegantly simple machine, a flow of supersonic air from the missile’s flight passes through a nuclear reactor core and is heated to ferocious temperatures.
It could reach Mach 4 and travel over 100,000 miles.
Here s What You Need to Remember: Cruising underwater by sucking in seawater, passing it through the reactor and expelling it for thrust, the SNR would make up to 100 knots submerged. Like boomers, though, the SNR would lurk quietly until summoned from the depths. Then the nuclear-powered “water-ramjet” would convert into a rocket as stored seawater heated to incandescence propelled the SNR out of the sea and into the sky.
Aerospace historian Scott Lowther has made a career and a place for himself in his field. Lowther’s steady stream of research, illustration, publication, and design examines the remarkable conceptual fertility of aerospace firms, chiefly American, during the twentieth century. One concept Lowther recently turned up seems too incredible to be true, but is attested to by two briefings and some basic data about a certain conceptual design for a new missile. The idea was straight out of British puppet TV sho