Similar to the Ausmerzer in Wolfenstein II: New Colossus or the Helicarrier in the Avengers universe.
In: Engineering
A caveat to the excellent answers here (shoutout to /u/WRSaunders): nuclear reactor powered aircraft are way too heavy to fly, *if* you care to bring enough shielding to protect the crew and the people on the ground. If you don’t care about safety and you just want to create an uncrewed nuclear cruise missile that spews deadly radiation out the back like a firehose, it’s probably possible, though research efforts in the 1960s were brought to a halt due to a mix of technical difficulties and “Why bother? We’ve already got better ways to horribly kill everyone on Earth.” And so nobody ever got one off the ground…
… Except. Last year, the Russians announced the development of a new nuclear-powered cruise missile with unlimited range, that sounds like it might be this same awful idea come back to life. And a few months ago, there was a nuclear accident on the north coast of Russia involving an “isotope power source for a liquid-fuelled rocket engine” that killed several workers. Many have suggested this might have been a failed test of a new nuclear-powered missile, though it’s hard to say.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear-powered_aircraft
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9M730_Burevestnik
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyonoksa_radiation_accident
… but that’s all uncrewed missiles. Crewed helicarriers? No way.
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