Project Rover was a nuclear thermal rocket project that ran from 1955 to 1973. Beginning as a United States Air Force project to develop a nuclear-powered upper stage for an intercontinental ballistic missile, it was transferred to NASA in 1958 after the Sputnik crisis triggered the Space Race. Nuclear reactors for Project Rover were built and tested at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory at very low power and then shipped to Area 25 (known as Jackass Flats) at the Nevada Test Site. Project Rover produced two large reactors, Kiwi (pictured) and Phoebus, and a smaller reactor, Pewee, conforming to the smaller budget available after 1968. The reactors were fueled by highly enriched uranium, with liquid hydrogen used as both a rocket propellant and reactor coolant. Their efficiency was roughly double that of chemical rockets. Project Rover was canceled in 1973, and none of the reactors developed ever flew.
Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Rover
_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:
1854:
In his apostolic constitution Ineffabilis Deus, Pope Pius IX proclaimed the dogmatic definition of the Immaculate Conception, which holds that the Virgin Mary was conceived free of original sin. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immaculate_Conception
1941:
The Holocaust: The Chełmno extermination camp in occupied Poland, the first such Nazi camp to kill Jews, began operating. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Che%C5%82mno_extermination_camp
1972:
During an aborted landing and go-around while approaching Chicago's Midway International Airport, United Airlines Flight 553 crashed into a residential neighborhood, destroying five houses and killing forty-five people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_553
2009:
Bombings in Baghdad carried out by the Islamic State of Iraq killed at least 127 people and injured at least 448 others. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/December_2009_Baghdad_bombings
_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:
Mariolatry: (Protestantism, derogatory) Adoration or veneration of the Virgin Mary to an extent regarded as inappropriate or even idolatrous. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Mariolatry
___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:
There is no safety in numbers, or in anything else. --James Thurber https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_Thurber