Word: reactors
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Beijing's experts have secretly built a nuclear reactor that is now nearing completion in the Algerian desert, American officials say. U.S. intelligence has also learned that China has sent Pakistan parts for its M-11 missile system, which can propel an 1,100-lb. warhead 180 miles, and is negotiating the sale to Syria of its M-9 missile, with a range of 375 miles. With the Chinese missiles, Pakistan could target major cities and military installations in India, and Syria could put all of Israel under threat...
...public by the Federation of American Scientists for the express purpose of torpedoing the scheme, the Pentagon has for several years been secretly developing a new kind of booster rocket -- code-named Timberwind -- that would loft giant weapons into space on short notice. Its power source: an onboard nuclear reactor running at extremely high temperatures and spewing radioactive exhaust directly into the atmosphere...
...idea behind Timberwind is simple. Just pump liquid hydrogen through a small nuclear reactor heated to several thousand degrees Fahrenheit. The liquid hydrogen is instantly converted to hydrogen gas, which then blasts out of a nozzle. The resulting thrust is two to three times as great as that generated in conventional rocket engines by the explosive mixture of hydrogen and oxygen. Much larger payloads could thus be lifted into orbit...
...nuclear devices go, Galileo's generators were relatively innocuous. Thermoelectric generators are battery-like gadgets that use natural radioactive decay in their fuel cells to produce electric power. Timberwind's engines, on the other hand, are true nuclear reactors that split atoms and generate heat, using the same chain reactions that power atom bombs. Although modern nuclear engineering has virtually eliminated the risk of explosions and meltdowns in such reactors, the problem of disposing of radioactive wastes has not gone away. Nor has the stigma attached to nuclear reactors in general. "If anybody tries launching a reactor-powered rocket," says...
...used in building the vessel. Ideally, such samples are periodically examined for hidden cracks, allowing scientists to determine how much embrittlement has occurred. Although Randall's opinion was a minority view, it electrified the plant's critics. The utility has promised to take new weld samples from within the reactor vessel sometime next year...