A Nuclear-Powered Plane?

TIME MAGAZINE

A Nuclear-Powered Plane? 

Monday, Jan. 13, 1958

In Deputy Defense Secretary Donald Quarles's office in the Pentagon last week a group of high-level Navy and Air Force officers got together to ponder a serious decision: whether the U.S. ought, in the age of the missile, to speed up a nuclear-powered airplane project, and, if so, what kind of plane, to perform what kind of mission, at what cost, and when. The Navy argued hard for a subsonic nuclear turboprop seaplane for antisubmarine warfare and long-range radar-warning patrol. The Air Force argued not quite so hard for a more advanced supersonic nuclear jet bomber. All believed that the Russians might soon have an atomic plane ready for testing.

The U.S.'s atomic-plane project has been slowed down three times since 1946 because critics argued that it was too complex, too costly (one flash estimate: $1 billion minimum), that new missiles would make the new atomic plane obsolete before it could fly. In 1953 Defense Secretary Wilson called the atomic plane "a shitepoke*—a great big bird that flies over the marshes—you know—that doesn't have much body or speed to it, or anything, but can fly."

Last week the argument revolved around whether the U.S. ought to design and build an entirely new aircraft for nuclear power (time estimate: four to six years) or install a reactor to power an existing-type plane (time estimate: three years). The Navy said that it could adapt several of its seaplanes, including the experimental Martin P-6M multijet Sea-master or the old Mars, now up for sale, added that it would be safer to test a nuclear plane over sea than over land areas, where a crash might expose civilians to explosion and radiation. The Air Force said it could adapt its operational B-52 intercontinental jet bomber or its KC-135 jet tanker, but added that it was much more interested in getting a supersonic nuclear jet that would provide a new operational weapons system than it was in winning a round in psychological warfare. In the end the meeting agreed only that 1) the atomic-plane project needed more study, and that 2) the group would get together again to consider the results of that study soonest—"but not next week."

 

* Webster: Any of various herons..."

NOTES:

1. Defense Secretary Wilson admitted in 1953 the nuclear plane works. It is flying. He calls it "a shitepoke." The shitepoke is a bird known for shitting while in flight. The is a reference to the flying testbed. The plane ejected reactor cores when it experienced problems. The ANP program was developing spy planes and bombers. He is referring to bomber or the strategic plane being developed under the program. The reconnaissance plane ie Canberra was working and flying at this point.

2. The article shows that the Air Force had plans to convert the B-52 to nuclear power.

3. Someone, probably Eisenhower, had slowed down the development of the ANP three times claiming that missiles made it obsolete. This was not true. The Blackbird and the Valkyrie were both designed to fly faster and higher than the SA-2 missile. 

4. The author of the article wants the reader to think the plane was slow. But the Air Force is interested in building a supersonic plane. 

5. There were planes for nuclear powered turboprops. 

6. The Air Force was making an oblique reference to the nuclear powered U-2. When the said that they were not interested in winning a round in psychological warfare. The U-2 and Canberra were being used in a psychological warfare campaign against the soviets. The US was flying these spy planes over the USSR.