A - BACKGROUND
Based on its prior work in the Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion (ANP) Program, ORNL retains significant facility capabilities for reactor shielding testing. The Tower Shielding Facility (TSF) at ORNL has two reactors, a 1 MWt Tower Shielding Reactor II (TRS-II), as well as a 10 kWt SNAP-10A.(1)
B - NEPA
a - Program Development
b - Reactors
c - Vehicles
d - Evaluation
C - AIRCRAFT NUCLEAR PROPULSION 1950-1954
a - Program Development
b - Reactors
c - Vehicles
d - Evaluation
D - WS-110A / WS-125A
1954-1956
a - Program Development
b - Reactors
c - Vehicles
d - Evaluation
E - AIRCRAFT NUCLEAR PROPULSION 1956-1962
a - Program Development
b - Reactors
c - Vehicles
d - Evaluation
Following close on the heels of the successful "Bomber Gap" came the "Nuclear Bomber Gap," which in contrast to its predecessor, seems to have been fabricated virtually out of thin air.
In December 1958, Aviation Week claimed that:(2)
"a nuclear-powered bomber is being flight tested in the Soviet Union. Completed about six months ago, this aircraft has been flying in the Moscow area for at least two months. It has been observed both in flight and on the ground by a wide variety of foreign observers from Communist and non-Communist countries." The article further claimed that the aircraft was "not a flying test bed in the sense that earlier US Air Force and Navy programs had called for installing a nuclear powerplant in a conventional airframe such as the B-36...solely for test purposes. The Soviet aircraft is a prototype of a design to perform a military mission as a continuous airborne alert warning system and missile launching platform..."
Representative Melvin Price of Illinois, Chairman of the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, declared in 1959 that the Russians were from three to five years ahead of the US in the field of atomic aircraft engines and that they would move even further ahead unless the US pressed forward with its own program.(3) The description given to the Soviet aircraft's mission was surprisingly similar to a proposed US system that was being explored by several defense contractors.
As described by then-deputy chief of staff for development for nuclear weapons Maj. Gen. Donald Keirn:(4)
"[a]n ideal airborne alert manned aircraft system must carry a large payload and remain on nomadic patrol for extended periods of time in various areas of the world...It must...be capable of instantaneous reaction with air launched missiles...following up the missile launching phase with a low-level high-speed penetration of the enemy's heartland in order to seek out and destroy hardened targets or targets whose locations are not sufficiently well known to permit attack by long-range missiles."
Several years later, a prototype of a Soviet conventionally-powered bomber, NATO code-named "Bounder," which never entered production, was found to closely resemble the schematics given to support the original nuclear airplane revelations. To date there is no indication that the Soviets were actually embarked on an aircraft nuclear propulsion program.
F - SUBSEQUENT STUDIES
1962-1983
a - Program Development
b - Reactors
c - Vehicles
d - Evaluation
1. Bartine, D.E, and Engle, W.W., "Space Reactor Shielding: An Assessment of the Technology," in Advanced Compact Reactor Systems, (National Research Council, Washington, DC, 1983).
2. "Soviets Flight Testing Nuclear Bomber," Aviation Week, 1 December 1958, p. 27.
3. Eastman, Ford, "Soviet Nuclear Plane Possibility Conceded," Aviation Week, 19 January 1959, p. 29.
4. Aviation Week, 1 December 1958, Op.Cit.