Chapter 341 - 333 There is a Mistake Here_1

Nevada, South, Lincoln County.

In the desert of the Great Plains in central America, a yellow building that blended with the color of the sand stood alone.

This was the Jackass Flats test site, and the team responsible for resuming the development of nuclear rocket engines was called the JFT team, or JFT for short.

Back when America conducted research on nuclear-powered rockets, it included several projects such as the "Kiwi" nuclear thermal rocket test engines in the ROVER program, the "Phoebus" nuclear thermal rocket engines, the "Peewee" nuclear thermal rocket engines; in the NERVA program were the NERVA NRX nuclear rocket test engines, Experimental nuclear thermal rocket engines, and also the SNTP and SEI programs, meaning there were at least 4 projects with 7 series of engines.

To save time, the JFT team selected two models that had appropriate technical difficulty and performance to continue their research.

The first was a high-thrust nuclear thermal rocket engine planned for use in the second and third stages of rockets, and they chose the "Phoebus 2A" as the base design.

When tested in 1967, Phoebus 2A ran at full power for 32 minutes at 4000MW (megawatts), with a peak power of 4082MW, a combustion chamber temperature of 2256K (1982 degrees Celsius), and a total flow rate of 118.8kg/s.

Using liquid hydrogen as fuel, Phoebus 2A achieved a specific impulse of 821 seconds, which means an output of 977KN, approximately 97.7 tons of thrust, qualifying it as a high-thrust rocket engine.

The second was a space propulsion nuclear power device developed from the NERVA A6 engine in the NERVA (Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Application) program.

The maximum power of the NERVA A6 could reach 1199MW, with a combustion chamber temperature of 2406K (2132 degrees Celsius) when operational, a specific impulse of 869 seconds, a flow rate of 32.7kg/s, and a thrust of about 28.5 tons. It could maintain maximum power for 60 minutes.

Both Phoebus 2A and NERVA A6 were actually in relatively early stages of development, their conservative designs limited by the technology of the 1960s, often resulting in actual test benchmarks exceeding the design values.

In other words, both still had a lot of potential to tap into.

But even with the current metrics alone, they completely outperformed all traditional rocket engines.

The technological level of the NERVA A6 was enough to carry a space shuttle back and forth to the Moon.

With rudimentary calculations, if the mass of a space shuttle taking off from low Earth orbit is 140 tons, then going to the Moon would only require about 45 tons of fuel to deliver a 20-ton payload, and the return trip would consume about 20 tons of fuel. All that was needed was to control the space shuttle’s dry weight to about 55 tons, which was not difficult with current technology.

Of course, in reality, this 55-ton dry weight would have to include the mass of the NERVA A6 and a more complex cooling system, but at the very least it showed that the theoretical prospects were quite good!

The leader of the JFT team, Freeman, was previously a senior engineer at DARPA, a company with a military background specializing in nuclear propulsion research. Now he was leading his team, preparing to develop a nuclear engine that could rival the A100 based on past data.

Freeman first skipped over the outrageous specific impulse of 26,000 seconds, skeptical if an extra zero had been mistakenly added since the second stage of traditional nuclear thermal engine technology had only developed to specific impulses of 2000 to 3000; at present, only Hall Thrusters could reach figures in the tens of thousands.

The other metrics of A100 were rather ordinary, with a 100KN thrust being average. The overall weight was clearly well controlled, deducible from the aerodynamic layout of H2 and the position of the three engines installed at the rear.

The Phoebus A2 and NERVA A6 are huge, and reducing their weight is no small engineering task.

The military demanded the FATS plan to be completed before July for the inaugural flight, Boeing’s side indicated that the refurbishing of the body could catch up, and then they came to press Freeman.

The military liaison to JET was a colonel, who looked young and brooding, clearly someone backed by one of the big shots.

Freeman, "Colonel Anthony, you should know that anything related to nuclear power is dangerous and requires very cautious verification before it can be put into practical use."

Anthony Potts did not refute this, instead he shook a stack of photos in his hand, which included satellite images and spy photos.

The location of Qingshan Base wasn’t exactly secretive, and although the A100 engine was camouflaged when it was trucked out, IAA informants still managed to snap pictures. Moreover, they confirmed with a portable radiation source detector that a nuclear engine was likely being transported.

It wasn’t that the A100 was a secret project; the nuclear testing grounds for it were well known to all major powers. Spy satellites easily confirmed that the A100 was undergoing testing.

Even though the specific results were unknown, this still immensely agitated the Pentagon.

Upon seeing these photos, Dr. Freeman understood the military’s urgency, but still wanted to make an effort:

"Research on nuclear engines has been interrupted for a long time, and back then, the plans were all meant to replace the engines for the first stage of rockets; they didn’t at all consider using them in space. You might not understand, so let me give you an example: It’s like moving a submarine from the sea to land and still expecting it to be able to move. The technological leap isn’t that exaggerated.

I think the nuclear engine isn’t the slowest part, why not wait a bit?"

Anthony Potts: "That brings us to the second matter, Dr. Freeman."

He took out another classified document bag, unsealed it in front of Freeman, and handed over the contents.

The latter flipped through and discovered it contained records of spacecraft NX-17—also known as New Yuan’s Thousand-Jun Stick No. 1 under the Pentagon’s filing code.

Anthony: "Take a look. XAP launched a space test nuclear reactor, and it’s not weak in terms of power. We’ve scanned it a few times with several infrared satellites and found that its peak thermal power exceeds 4000 kilowatts; the Union’s former Tobas-1 nuclear thermal reactor electrical generation efficiency was less than 5%, and it seems NX-17 is using the same thermionic electricity generation technology, so it must be capable of outputting at least 200 kilowatts of power.

"200 kilowatts, Doctor, that’s not a small number. If they double it, it will fit just right on the H2, providing a continuous power of 500 kilowatts. With capacitors, it can reach more than 1 megawatt. Any satellite or spacecraft known to us can be destroyed with either power level."

Dr. Freeman read carefully through the data collected by the Pentagon in various ways, slowly understanding the Air Force’s reasons for concern.

The first phase of AAF’s FATS plan envisioned a laser power of only megawatt-level, and the technology that could support such power had almost emerged, while the AAF had nothing yet.

However, he had some objections to NX-17.

"NX-17 is unlikely to use thermionic power generation; its advantage is its small size and light weight, but the efficiency is very low. If high power is indeed needed, they would use a closed Brayton cycle for power generation, which is over six times more efficient than thermionic. NX-17 is 22 tons; such a large volume would definitely opt for thermal exchange Brayton cycle power generation. The power output must have exceeded 1500 kilowatts."

After Freeman finished speaking, he glanced again at the conjectural diagram of NX-17’s construction and reaffirmed:

"Correct, if it were thermionic power generation, they would only need less than one-third of the volume, and even if they were not very professional, they couldn’t possibly make a thermionic power stack so large. There’s an error here."

It was quite normal for non-professionals to make errors, and Freeman was merely pointing it out, but Anthony Potts furrowed his brow.

"Dr. Freeman, are you certain thermionic power generation would occupy less than one-third of the volume?"

Freeman nodded affirmatively with great certainty: "This is common knowledge even among middle school students. Perhaps your intelligence analysts aren’t very professional, but it doesn’t affect much.

Since you need it, I’ll do my best to make improvements based on the NERVA A6..."

Before he could finish, Anthony interrupted Freeman with a serious tone:

"Doctor, what I need to tell you is that the intelligence analysis department indeed lacks nuclear experts, so they requested Professor Robert Patterson from the University of Pennsylvania, who analyzed NX-17’s power, thermal power, and the method of electricity generation."

"Robert Patterson?!" Freeman was somewhat incredulous; this was his mentor, who couldn’t possibly make such a rudimentary error.