Ultra-dream nuclear power aircraft: 3 times the speed of sound flying for months

According to foreign media reports, with such a plane, it takes only three hours to get you from London to New York. Although the speed is as high as 2,300 miles per hour (about 3,680 kilometers), the Atlantic Ocean is passing under you, but the travel experience is still comfortable and the first class can even be extravagant.

The plane is called "The Falcon Falcon" and looks like the spacecraft in the video game Halo. It can fill the gap left by the supersonic Concorde since its decommissioning in 2003. However, the current prototype has not yet been manufactured. The design of this aircraft is only present in the imagination of the Spanish designer Oscar Vinals. In 2014, he also designed a "whale-shaped" jumbo passenger plane for the BBC's "Future" channel.

The "Falcon Falcon" will carry 250 passengers and fly at 3 times the speed of sound.

According to Vinalles’s idea, the “Fallen Falcon” will be able to carry 250 passengers and fly at Mach 3 at a speed of 130 feet (39 meters) longer than the Concorde, and the wingspan is a Concorde aircraft. Twice. The aircraft engine can even be tilted by 20 degrees to allow the aircraft to take off and land vertically as a helicopter.

The core of the "Falcon Falcon" has also adopted a revolutionary design: A nuclear fusion reactor is installed in the aircraft to use nuclear energy to provide flight power for six electric engines. "I think that nuclear fusion will become the best source of large amounts of electricity in the future," said Vennars. "At the same time, it is still 'green' and will not produce dangerous waste."

"Now we have a clear understanding of the principles of nuclear fusion and there are many researches in this area, such as Tokamak, Iter, and the stars. Stellarator, etc. I believe that within the next five to seven years, we will be able to build the first stable, production-ready nuclear fusion reactor."

With the installation of a removable engine, the "Falcon Falcon" can take off and land vertically as a helicopter.

Regardless of whether we can find low-cost, high-energy reserves in the short term, Vinales’s vision reawakened the dreams that aircraft designers had had since the 1950s—installing nuclear reactors on aircraft.

The invention of the nuclear fission reactor not only brought low energy to millions of households, but also contributed to the vessel. In the 1950s, the first small reactors that could be installed on board were put into use. Only a few years later, their volume was further reduced and they found their place in the submarine.

The 1950s was one of the golden ages of aircraft design. Technology has made great progress. It not only promoted the development of the commercial aircraft market in the post-war world, but also played its role in the Cold War. As the tension between the United States and the Soviet Union continues to intensify, the United States hopes to further increase the distance of the long-range nuclear bombers to increase their own air defense capabilities.

In theory, nuclear reactors can stay in the air for months at a time – as long as your plane is big enough, the crew can take turns on duty. But Simon Weeks of the British Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics pointed out that installing a nuclear fission reactor on an aircraft will bring a series of problems. Not only do you need a "closed loop system" (that is, a reactor that can reuse waste fuel), but you also need a lot of protective materials. "Nuclear fission will produce a lot of neutrons, and neutrons will cause great harm to the human body." Wicks said.

The only nuclear energy aircraft in the West was a modified B-36 bomber in the early 1950s. The aircraft was huge in size. In order to block the radiation, it added an additional 11 tons of weight. Although it flew 47 times, the above-loaded nuclear reactor was only used during testing and was not really used to power the aircraft.

The enormous risk of nuclear fission aircraft hinders its further development. Although the military may follow instructions and drive nuclear power planes, passengers do not seem willing to sit a few meters away from the nuclear reactor. The nuclear business machine is still only present in the artist's imagination. It may take another 50 or 100 years to become a reality.

However, Vinal's concept machine is not powered by nuclear fission. "People often see 'nuclear power' as something dangerous, but nuclear fusion is not dangerous." Nuclear fusion does not form a chain reaction like nuclear fission, but instead synthesizes two or more atoms into one more Large atoms, while creating more energy, will not produce any pollutants.

Although nuclear fusion is currently technically difficult to achieve, Wieners has not been intimidated by this. Concepts such as "The Falcon Falcon" don't need to be limited by today's technology, because part of the role of these ideas is to let us imagine what would happen to a product designed using technology we haven't yet mastered.

However, we still have a certain distance from nuclear fusion. "We have to spend at least 50 years to achieve nuclear fusion," said Wicks. For example, nuclear fusion reactors are still in the experimental stage. The International Thermonuclear Fusion Reactor, which was previously under construction in France, will take about 10 years to activate. Even if such a reactor can be put into practical use and can produce the same cheap and clean energy as expected, there will be a series of problems that need to be solved.

"While then, our challenge will be to reduce the size and weight of the reactor," said Wicks. "In the 1940s and 1980s, nuclear fission technology made tremendous and relatively rapid progress. From 50 Since the beginning of the decade, we have been studying nuclear fusion. So far, we haven't built reactors that can be put into practical use, and it takes 20 or 30 years to achieve this."

Wicks said that it would be much more difficult to build a portable nuclear fusion reactor that could function as an aircraft (such as a supersonic aircraft designed by Werners) than a passenger aircraft that would fly at three times the speed of sound. People have high hopes for alternative fuels. For example, aviation kerosene used in jet engines is a propellant with multiple uses. "It is an excellent medium for making other energy sources. It has a high energy density, is easy to control, and has excellent performance under a variety of temperature conditions," said Wicks.

“It can not only be used as a fuel, but also as a coolant, lubricant, even hydraulic oil, and so on.” Climate change may be an important reason for finding alternative fuels for aircraft, but the energy required to make aircraft fly at high speed is extremely high. huge. A battery like the one installed on the Solar Impulse solar airplane will generate only one-twentieth of the equivalent weight of kerosene.

Perhaps in the next century, nuclear fusion vehicles will remain elusive. Wicks believes that we are more likely to use a hybrid energy supply approach. For example, the thrusters we use can also help create energy, and then store this energy for takeoff.

In terms of today's technology, the "Flashing Falcon" is still difficult to achieve. However, looking at the entire history of aviation, too many accomplishments were once considered impossible. Perhaps one day, nuclear fusion will become one of these achievements.

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