An incredible NUCLEAR-POWERED FLIGHT film is newly available online!

We just scanned this declassified film showing 30 minutes of detail from the major reactor development program at its peak, between 1956-1958.

It presents the program goals and evolution, including how global operating costs were expected to be reduced by eliminating the need to operate foreign air bases around the world. Materials problems required them to reduce requirements from high-altitude/supersonic to low-altitude/subsonic. Ongoing development and progress is shown on the GE direct air cycle (XMA-2) in Idaho and Evandale, and the P&W indirect liquid-metal lithium-7 cooled cycle at CANAL, where they developed niobium-based alloys and technology that could run at the required crazy-high temperatures and withstand lithium.

It shows dozens of things I've never seen before, like the 3 ZrH and BeO inserts put into HTRE-2, and talks a bit about the HTRE-3 meltdown. The HTREs can still be seen in the parking lot of the EBR-1 museum on the INL site.

They show an in-reactor test loop being fabricated and tested in a large oil-fired heater, destined to be inserted in the ETR in Idaho.