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>
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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>
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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>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
There is no safety in numbers, or in anything else.
--James Thurber
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_Thurber>