Word: reactors
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
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...
Washington's evidence on the reactor in Algeria comes from satellite photographs and other intelligence data. "Most of the structure is finished," says a U.S. official. "We don't know if any nuclear fuel is there. We don't think it is in operation." What worries the watchers is that the reactor was built in secret and that its capacity -- estimated at between 15 and 40 megawatts -- is too small for generating electricity but too large for research. The likely conclusion, they say, is that its purpose is to produce plutonium for nuclear weapons...
Asked last week about the nuclear-reactor project, a Foreign Ministry official in Beijing said, "We have never heard of that," and promptly changed the subject. Even in public, Chinese leaders make little pretense of being serious about controlling missiles and conventional armaments. They repeat pious slogans about eliminating nuclear weapons but otherwise imply that they will do what they wish with their "prudent and responsible" arms sales...
...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...