guardian.co.uk,
Monday 2 April 2012 11.00 EDT
American scientists have drawn up plans for a new generation of
nuclear-powered drones capable of flying over remote regions of the world for
months on end without refuelling.
The blueprints
for the new drones, which have been developed by Sandia National Laboratories –
the US government's principal nuclear research and development agency – and
defence contractor Northrop Grumman, were designed to increase flying time
"from days to months" while making more power available for operating
equipment, according to a project summary published by Sandia.
"It's pretty
terrifying prospect," said Chris Coles of Drone Wars UK, which campaigns
against the increasing use of drones for both military and civilian purposes.
"Drones are much less safe than other aircraft and tend to crash a lot.
There is a major push by this industry to increase the use of drones and both
the public and government are struggling to keep up with the
implications."
The highly sensitive research into what is termed "ultra-persistence
technologies" set out to solve three problems associated with drones:
insufficient "hang time" over a potential target; lack of power for
running sophisticated surveillance and weapons systems; and lack of
communications capacity.
The
Sandia-Northrop Grumman team looked at numerous different power systems for
large- and medium-sized drones before settling on a nuclear solution. Northrop
Grumman is known to have patented a drone equipped with a helium-cooled nuclear
reactor as long ago as 1986, and has previously worked on nuclear projects with
the US air force research laboratory. Designs for nuclear-powered aircraft are
known to go back as far as the 1950s.
The research team
found that the nuclear drones were able to provide far more surveillance time
and intelligence information per mission compared to other technologies, and
also to reduce the considerable costs of support systems – eliminating the
need, for example, for forward bases and fuel supplies in remote and possibly
hostile areas.
A halt has been
called to the work for now, due to worries that public opinion will not accept
the idea of such a potentially hazardous technology, with the inherent dangers
of either a crash – in effect turning the drone into a so-called dirty bomb –
or of its nuclear propulsion system falling into the hands of terrorists or
unfriendly powers.
Sandia confirmed
that the project had been completed: "Sandia is often asked to look at a
wide range of solutions to the toughest technical challenges. The research on
this topic was highly theoretical and very conceptual. The work only resulted
in a preliminary feasibility study and no hardware was ever built or tested.
The project has ended."
According to a summary of the research published by the
Federation of American Scientists, an independent thinktank, computer-based
projections were used to test the concepts. "Based on requirements and
direction provided by Northrop Grumman, Sandia performed focused studies to
translate stated needs into conceptual designs and processes that could be
transferred easily from Sandia to industry design and production personnel,"
the document says.
So sensitive is
the issue that the summary does not spell out the fact that it is referring to
a nuclear-powered drone, referring instead to "propulsion and power
technologies that went well beyond existing hydrocarbon technologies". However,
the project's lead investigator at Sandia, Dr Steven Dron, is well known as a
specialist in nuclear propulsion, having co-chaired a session at the 2008
Symposium on Space Nuclear
Power and Propulsion, held at the University of New Mexico in 2008.
The research
summary also stated that the results "were to be used in the next
generation of unmanned air vehicles used for military and intelligence
applications", where they "would have provided system performance
unparalleled by other existing technologies".
It added that
"none of the results will be used in the near-term or mid-term
future", due to political constraints.
The potential
impact of nuclear-powered drones can be gauged by comparing them with existing
aircraft such as the MQ-9 Reaper, which is used extensively in Afghanistan and Pakistan
Using nuclear
power would enable the Reaper not only to remain airborne for far longer, but
to carry more missiles or surveillance equipment, and to dispense with the need
for ground crews based in remote and dangerous areas.
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