Jackball74
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If you watch the excellent video documentary I linked to above, you'll see that they actually developed and successfully tested the 500MW nuclear ramjet which is what that entire documentary is mostly about. They used a huge array of high pressure pipe to store the compressed air injected into the the full-scale ramjet's intake, first passing that air through large silos filled with large, pre-heated ball bearings to heat the air to the proper flight temperature.That thing is scary, I remember talking with someone about this and theorizing the post apocalyptic stories that would be told about a dragon spewing death being passed down. And I do remember seeing it before on TRF
Amazingly, even those involved in the program had doubts, wondering "Where in the HELL are we going to test this?" They planned to do a racetrack flight test far out at sea with a destruct system and, if that didn't work, fighters to shoot it down. However, the program was cancelled and what remains is just the fascinating tech of a crazy, nightmarish, end of the world as we know it weapons system.This whole thing is a nasty piece of work. Glad it never got built.
(but thanks for the post, very interesting video)
Cool! Even thought it's not reviewed well, I'm going to see if that's available on Netflix. That's exactly the sort of thing that keeps me with the Netflix DVD/Blu-ray rental deal. Check out the Wikipedia entry about it (full of spoilers, of course):I vaguely recall this old sci-fi movie from the ‘50s about some rocket or satellite or some-such that was roaring around the Earth emitting radiation and killing everything beneath it.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051881/?ref_=fn_al_tt_9
I wonder if the writes had ever heard about “PLUTO”.
Bless YouTube! The entire movie is there which I will be watching later:I vaguely recall this old sci-fi movie from the 50s about some rocket or satellite or some-such that was roaring around the Earth emitting radiation and killing everything beneath it.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051881/?ref_=fn_al_tt_9
I wonder if the writes had ever heard about PLUTO.
No, but if you find it, please post its name here. I love old, not well known sci-fi movies.While on the subject of cheesy sci-fi movies that dealt with missiles and rockets; does anybody remember the title of a movie wherein this “friendly alien”, which looks like a human brain, arrives on Earth and gathers a bunch of kids to help it stop humanity from launching a rocket called the “Thunderer” If I recall correctly, that was a nuclear armed orbital bomb platform?
And if the plot sounds a bit like the Star Trek episode “Assignment Earth” and if perhaps Gene Rodenberry had perhaps borrowed it, I wondered that myself.
Possibly the same thing it says about me and the imaginary cast of the Big Bang Theory. I'm not a genius, but my recreational pursuits and hobbies involve the mind and the imagination... not physical sports, for instance, which I couldn't give a rat's arse about in any way and never have.Ive seen them all.
Not sure what that says about me.
That's one scary piece of technology. But the entire arms race at that time was pretty scary.
I also remember some scary ideas for the peaceful use of nuclear technology too. I was in high school in the 80's, and I remember one day that our physics teacher must have had some kind of busy work he had to do, so he got out an old film from the 50's or 60's for the class to watch about peaceful uses for nuclear bombs. Hilarious, in a very campy and ironic way in the 80's! But the film was made in all seriousness just a few decades earlier. It was about using hydrogen bombs for things like blasting out a new panama canal. There was an idea for blasting enormous chambers under ground for storing oil, or gas, or water. There was even something about using nukes to blow up hurricanes! Setting aside the radiation issues, I have no idea if that would even work. But the film showed a dramatization with a 50's sci-fi command center staffed by people in shiny jump suits. They were tracking a developing storm that was threatening the east coast, and after the storm passed a certain threshold of danger, the decision was made to deploy the nukes, and a bomber was dispatched to save the day! Thanks, peaceful atom!
No, but if you find it, please post its name here. I love old, not well known sci-fi movies.
Seen any of these?
Fiend Without a Face! (1958) - Full Movie (Brains with spinal chords, attack you and suck your brain out)
[video=youtube;6M-MtZkZOzw]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6M-MtZkZOzw[/video]
X The Unknown (1956) ORIGINAL THEATRICAL TRAILER (Highly radioactive blob)
[video=youtube;krz8ym_TdSs]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krz8ym_TdSs[/video]
Kronos (1957) Full Movie (Cool, giant robot from space)
[video=youtube;M0QpVgfx4PI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0QpVgfx4PI[/video]
The Day of the Triffids ** 1962 Full Movie (Plants attack)
[video=youtube;FLP0-lowEPA]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLP0-lowEPA][/video]
While the concept of “Blowing-up” a hurricane using a nuclear bomb would probably work and assuming some means was developed to mitigate the fallout; that still leaves us with what the heck happens to the Earth’s climate when its natural form of air-conditioning is disrupted.
Hurricanes are all about heat transfer and if hurricanes are stopped that heat has to go somewhere, somehow.
And yes; I saw that same cheesy film telling us we would all soon have electricity that was too cheap to meter.
Bless YouTube! The entire movie is there which I will be watching later:
[video=youtube;01ZN7CZkmeg]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01ZN7CZkmeg[/video]
Part of the Plowshare Program was oil and gas well stimulation... They drilled a well into hard impermeable gas-bearing shale in NW New Mexico and SW Colorado around Rifle, Colorado. These formations had copious amounts of hydrocarbons embedded in them, but the impermeability of the shale rock underground prevented economical extraction using 50's and 60's technology (and with the gas and oil prices of the time.) They drilled a well, then lowered some low to medium yield (kiloton range) nuclear devices down the borehole to the bottom of the well... then they detonated them. The nuclear blast vaporized a large cavity in the rock a few dozen yards wide, and deeply fracture the hard shale out into the formation well away from the cavity itself, which then allowed the gas to flow through the resulting cracks into the chamber and then up the borehole to the wellhead at the surface. The idea worked, but the problem was, the gas was too radioactive to distribute commercially... they capped the wells and that was that (after three separate tries in the same general area of New Mexico and Colorado. Today those formations are being drilled and tapped like wildfire and are producing like gangbusters, thanks to fracking technology being used to break up the rock and fracture it in the same way, sans the nuclear devices...Later! OL JR
I doubt a hurricane would even have much of a hiccup from a nuclear blast... after all a hurricane releases the same amount of energy as a "typical" atomic bomb every 40 seconds or so... just in a different form and over a MUCH wider area. At any rate, hurricanes feed on HEAT, which nuclear weapons produce in prodigious amounts...
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