Word: uranium
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...eleven crewmen of the 6-29 Enola Gay stood silently in the early-morning darkness, eyes fixed on a solemn, balding Navy captain with a staggering burden: two cans filled with 137.3 Ibs. of uranium 235. At 0245 hours on Aug. 6, 1945, the Enola Gay lifted heavily from the long runway at Tinian. Within minutes. Captain William Sterling Parsons climbed into the stuffy bomb bay. Thus began five fateful hours in Liman history...
...uranium masses. One mistake could have vaporized Deke Parsons, the eleven crewmen and the Enola...
...Deep Space. Nuclear rocket enthusiasts are not really satisfied with an engine that works in so simple a way. They are already dreaming of more sophisticated schemes for long-distance flights. One of these is an engine whose nuclear fuel is a uranium-rich gas mixed with the hydrogen propellant. When the nuclear reaction starts, both gases will get hot and blast out of the nozzle. This would produce a magnificent short-duration thrust, but the wasted uranium would cost something like $150 million per takeoff. The way around this little difficulty would be some system to keep the heavy...
...better. The role of nuclear rockets will be to carry large payloads to orbits around the earth or to the nearer parts of the solar system. They will be particularly good for ferrying supplies to an orbiting space-station. The engine will use only a small part of its uranium fuel during each trip, so if the space-ferry is recoverable, it can make several trips on the same charge...
Another possibility is a rocket engine that uses nuclear fusion of heavy hydrogen instead of fission of uranium. No controlled fusion reactor has yet been constructed for any purpose, and making a light one for rockets will be much harder than making a heavy one for power stations. But the nuclear enthusiasts are not discouraged. Deuterium is cheap, they say, and even if the entire stock were shot out of the nozzle, the fuel for a flight would cost only...