Ancient Geological Formations Were Working Reactors

In sixteen different areas in an African uranium mine are ancient evidence that at one point in distant history there were naturally occurring nuclear reactors capable of generating 100kws of electricity! What is even more astounding is that the reaction was stable for thousands of years. Now before you get yourself in a tizzy remember how powerful 100kws is. An electric heater pulls about 5kws so we are talking about 20 or so heaters. But it's how LONG they ran, now that's amazing! How can a reactor sustain itself without running away and melting down? It seems that ground water played a big part. It only ran periodically so the reaction had a chance to build and then water was introduced to inhibit runaway. So for a hundred thousand years or so this system would heat up and then water would shut it off only to start over again. I know, gross oversimplification of the process - but to be able to take place at all a few billion years ago is mind twisting!

Scientific American via Dvice blog

A Nuclear Aircraft?!

Hey, does anyone remember that at one point in the very early 60s, the US almost had a long range nuclear bomber?! Oh yeah we did! The XB-70 Valkyrie.

Why you sanely ask? Well in the early 60s, the USA's nuclear deterrent was based around the aging B-52 fleet.

The Pentagon was looking for the eventual replacement, to the B- 52. They wanted a bomber that could cruise at ultra-high altitude, carry nuclear bombs, and stay aloft for extended periods. It also needed to escape intercepting fighters, to it had to be fast as well. Jet engines of the day just couldn't produce the power that would be needed to fly high, fast and carry heavy payloads. As such early research turned to a nuclear reactor to power the plane. Crazy as it sounds, research in the 50s had already flown functioning reactors in test planes. Not to power the plane mind you, but the reactors were fueled and running during many test flights.

Design finally settled on the XB-70 Valkyrie (not a complete pipe dream if you look at it. The Valkyrie it seemed strongly influenced the SR-70 & B-1b planes)

The Valkyrie's days were numbered right from the start however. Cost over-runs and technical problems soon brought the XB-70 project to a grinding halt. Also, long range ICBMs were proving themselves very reliable at putting multiple warheads on target, plus other advancements in missile tech made it impossible to fly high enough or fast enough to avoid being shot down.

In the end only 2 XB-70s were ever built and neither was fitted with a reactor. One crashed during a test flight collision with a chase plane and the final Valkyrie resides at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force in Ohio.

Read the excellent article here on the IO9 blog Wikipedia on the xb-70

WTF! Thermonuclear Space Shots?

Since the earliest days of printed and even cinematic science fiction, the thought of gaining access to the heavenly bodies often included in it's arsenal of launch systems, a very large bore cannon. Who among us has not seen, at least partially, men in top hats and tails entering what can only be described as the mother of all artillery shells. Said conveyance is then thrust into the bore (oh yes, I am very aware of what I am typing) of an equally large cannon by a bevy of 20s bathing beauties, to be fired, with rather gruesome effects into the right eye of the man in the moon. (I saw the sequence for the first time as a child only to be horrified as the yokey mess poured from the mutilated eye around our intrepid travelers cannon shell.)

Ahh the good ole days. Romantic or otherwise, ballistic space travel using a cannon or otherwise proved to be impractical in so many ways. So you can well understand my reaction when looking through various news articles, I found myself instead traveling the on-ramp of the magical mushroom mystery motorcade.

This is the article on the Next Big Future site via Dvice blog -Sea Based Launch Option for the Nuclear space launch cannon.

Nope I am not crazy and even Dvice thinks it's only "mostly" crazy. Even Joseph Friedlander, father to this brain child, admits the inspiration came from Vern's gun.

And to prove what comes next is not something I netted from a fever dream, here is an article excerpt:

• Dig a kilometer deep shaft, at the bottom build a giant cannon shell. Finally, after all is in readiness, pump reaction mass through an access shaft under the (shell) into a prepared chamber and place a thermonuclear explosive device in the midst of the reaction mass.

Surprisingly there are some who don't like this method, something about a smoking, kilometers deep, radioactive hole the launch would leave behind. (I would almost guess that each launch is a one off. Just from the fracturing of the bedrock alone....) And the not so crazy part? Well cost.
Each launch could be 1000 tons plus and with all the cost factored in the cost per pound would be around $100! I wonder if they factored in cleanup? I mean, someone has to back-fill that hole right?

This has got Slim Pickens written all over it huh?

Check out the articles on Dvice & Next Big Future

Dvice article
Nuclear space launch article on Next Big Future

Nuking Killer Asteroid Probably Wouldn't Work

Blowing up an Earth killer asteroid with an nuclear weapon has been a mainstay of written and movie science fiction. It has fallen out of favor over the past few years because it was thought that even though the body was broken into parts, they would continue along the same trajectory and impact the Earth like a shot-gun blast instead of a bullet.

But according to an article in New Scientist, unless the nuke was sufficiently large there might be another reason that this method probably wouldn't work.

It seems that if the constituents are not accelerated apart at a high enough velocity, the pieces start to coalesce in as little as 2 hours, therefor the net impact effect would be almost identical.

The good news is that if the bomb is of sufficient yield and the asteroid relatively small, the blast would permanently disperse the asteroid's parts.

Scientist have simulated blowing up 1 kilometer asteroids and found that a bomb of 900kilo-tons yield would be sufficient. The good news is that 900 kilo-ton is a doable size however even simple math shows that even a modest increase in asteroid size requires a geometric increase in the size of the explosive device.

NewScientist via Gizmodo

Does Russia Still Have an Active Doomsday Device?

Leave it to IO9 to dig up some really nightmarish scenarios. In this article, Charles Jane Anders writes that Russia built a "nuclear fail-safe strike-back device" in 1984.

Wired Senior Editor Nicholas Thompson recently wrote an article about this Soviet defensive weapon, known as Perimeter, but also frequently referred to as The Dead Hand. The system was reported to remain in a semi standby mode, but once activated, would look for evidence of a nuclear attack.

What makes this device particularly nightmarish is the evidence that it was never part of the "MAD" plan which through various sabre rattling by both side to assure each others certain destruction should an attack be launched. Perimeter was kept classified by the Russian government and secret even from Russia's own arms negotiators.

What's more, "Dead Hand" does not seem to be in any way shape or form, phased out. There is every indication that the machine is continuously being upgraded.

Here is the complete IO9 article and the wired article can be read here [Wired]

Very scary and very interesting indeed.

Luna Uranium Mining?

The Japanese Kaguya spacecraft has discovered that Uranium exists on the moon. This according to an article submitted by Dave Tackett from Space.com.

From the article:

• The findings are the first conclusive evidence for the presence of the radioactive element...
• The revelation suggests that nuclear power plants could be built on the moon - or the ore could possibly be used to fire plants back here on Earth.

Since Moon colonies and Earth alike will need power in the future, this finding may prove to be very lucrative. As Dave points out Heinlein would have love this!

Space.com article

US Plans Army of Nuclear Waste Robots?!

According to an article in IO9: The federal government has plans to store nuclear waste at nearby Yucca Mountain. The federal government has submitted documents in court, explaining its plan to deal with the highly toxic nuclear waste. The plans apparently involve high-tech metal containers that haven't been invented yet, massive titanium shields that will be watertight to prevent corrosive water from getting at the waste containers, and a huge army of awesome robots that will go in 100 years from now and seal the place up.

Ummm geee what could go wrong with this idea?! Oh wait! We barely could carry out a 10 year plan set up by a dynamic president. That was forty years ago and now people forget if something has more than two years of time built into the framework. They began raiding the environmental superfund before the ink was even dry and we are going to depend on promises that a plan will stay on track with its' own funds for 100?!

I think representative Shelley Berkley says it best: At the end of 100 years they are going to send an army of robots — think ‘I, Robot’ — marching down underneath Yucca Mountain to install yet-to-be-invented titanium shields. It’s hard to fathom anyone suggesting it, let alone the secretary of energy.

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Astronaut says NASA wants to Nuke asteroids

I am starting to get a sinking feeling here. First I hear that Nasa is asking for funding to track Earth crossing asteroids. That's good.... Then NASA starts talking about reasonable ways to deal with possibly dangerous ones. Again good deal. Then we hear about Rusty Schweickart B612 Foundation, which wants to alter asteroid orbits in a controlled manner. My reaction is that this seems like duplication of efforts. Isn't that what NASA is working on? Why diminish that effort? Then what starts to sound like sour grapes Schweickart says NASA favors using nuclear bombs. But in a 2007 report, that's exactly what NASA is proposing. Now excuse me, hasn't this method proved itself to be one of the LEAST effective? Then reading in a Gizmodo article, NASA and Schweickart's motivations got a lot clearer. As Gizmodo puts it:

• Schweickart believes its (NASA) cash-strapped later years might have led the agency—under immense pressure from Washington—to endorse a program with an ulterior motive: put nuclear weapons in space.

I don't know why I should be surprised, it's well known that several shuttle mission were thinly disguised military, many of the pre-mercury launches like the Aurora were out and out spy flights, I can totally get behind there being ulterior motivations for what at first sounds idiotic. And in the end, what makes it totally insane, is the fact that a platform like this could be taken out with a well place can of nails. But that is another story...

Go off the grid with a personal nuclear reactor! REALLY!

Toshiba has developed a new class of micro size Nuclear Reactors that is designed to power individual apartment buildings or city blocks. The new reactor is only 20 feet by 6 feet and is designed to supply 200 kw for 5 cents per kh. Unlike traditional nuclear reactors the new micro reactor uses no control rods to initiate the reaction. The new technology uses reservoirs of liquid lithium-6, an isotope that is effective at absorbing neutrons. The Lithium-6 reservoirs are connected to a vertical tube that fits into the reactor core. The whole whole process is self sustaining and can last for up to 40 years. Toshiba expects to install the first reactor in Japan in 2008 and to begin marketing the new system in Europe and America in 2009.

Wow, all I need now is a flux capacitor.......

Navy Heats Up Cold Fusion Hopes

Cold fusion, the ability to generate nuclear power at room temperatures, has proven to be a highly elusive feat. In fact, it is considered by many experts to be a mere pipe dream. Cold fusion has gotten the cold shoulder from serious nuclear physicists since 1989, when Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann were unable to substantiate their sensational claims that deuterium nuclei could be forced to fuse and release excess energy at room temperature. Spawar researchers apparently kept the faith, however, and continued to refine the procedure by experimenting with new fusionable materials. However, a recently published academic paper from the Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center (SPAWAR) in San Diego reports that Spawar scientists Stanislaw Szpak and Pamela Mosier-Boss have achieved a low energy nuclear reaction (LENR) that can be replicated and verified by the scientific community. Szpak and Boss now claim to have succeeded at last by coating a thin wire with palladium and deuterium, then subjected it to magnetic and electric fields. The Spawar method shows promise, particularly in terms of being easily reproduced and verified by other institutions. Such verification is essential to widespread acceptance of the apparent breakthrough.

Submitted by Shaun A. Saunders

Teen creates nuclear fusion reactor in parents' basement

Thiago Olson, a 17-year-old from outside Detroit, went and built himself a nuclear fusion reactor in his parents' basement. It took him over 1,000 hours. The setup involves a vacuum chamber that gets filled with deuterium gas which then gets zapped with 40,000 volts of electricity. What results is a small amount of nuclear fusion.