General Electric HTRE-3 Nuclear Jet Engine
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General Electric HTRE-3 Nuclear Jet Engine
1–10 of 71 posts
Re: General Electric HTRE-3 Nuclear Jet Engine
#2Such a wild concept from a wild time in history.
I have wanted upon occasion to put together a YouTube channel where I drop in on nerdy road trip destinations to try and get others to roll out and check these places out as well. I think in fact it was my stumbling upon the Experimental Breeder Reactor 1 [1] where I first hatched the idea.
Such an amazing place and with those crazy nuclear jet engines just sitting outside.... So sublime: a picnic lunch with the wife and kids at a table by the experimental nuclear engines....
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experimental_Breeder_Reactor_I
Re: General Electric HTRE-3 Nuclear Jet Engine
#3I wonder if a RTG could produce enough to run an electric quad or optocopter?
For certain applications if unmanned you wouldn’t really need to worry about shielding. I wonder how long those motors can run continuously?
Re: General Electric HTRE-3 Nuclear Jet Engine
#4Did they just expect these aircraft to never crash?
Re: General Electric HTRE-3 Nuclear Jet Engine
#5Did they just expect these aircraft to never crash?
No, that was one of the practical problems with the concept.
Re: General Electric HTRE-3 Nuclear Jet Engine
#6I wonder if a RTG could produce enough to run an electric quad or optocopter? For certain applications if unmanned you wouldn’t really need to worry about shielding. I wonder how long those motors can run continuously?
The RTGs on the Voyager spacecraft weigh 38kg. They initially produced 160 Watts. That sounds like a no-go to me.
Re: General Electric HTRE-3 Nuclear Jet Engine
#7As far as I can tell, aircraft and space nuclear propulsion still hasn't actually be used in flight, right?
Re: General Electric HTRE-3 Nuclear Jet Engine
#8I wonder if a RTG could produce enough to run an electric quad or optocopter? For certain applications if unmanned you wouldn’t really need to worry about shielding. I wonder how long those motors can run continuously?
The RTGs on the Voyager spacecraft weigh 38kg. They initially produced 160 Watts. That sounds like a no-go to me.
It might not have great power density but boy does that thing keep going for decades
Re: General Electric HTRE-3 Nuclear Jet Engine
#9I wonder if a RTG could produce enough to run an electric quad or optocopter? For certain applications if unmanned you wouldn’t really need to worry about shielding. I wonder how long those motors can run continuously?
I got nerd sniped by this and asked GPT some questions.
Given a 45kg RTG plus the weight of the drone itself, you’d need to be able to lift, say, 60kg.
Energy required to hover 60kg using a 4-rotor drone at 70% efficiency is about 10kW - according to GPT. I don’t know enough to say if this is true or not.
Assuming it’s correct, and that a 45kg RTG generates about 300 watts, give or take, the answer is:
no.
Re: General Electric HTRE-3 Nuclear Jet Engine
#10Here's another fun one:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supersonic_Low_Altitude_Missil...
An unmanned nuclear-powered ramjet designed to spew warheads, with a predicted range of 116,000 kilometers.