Predicting the future is much like predicting which horse will win the 3:30 at Newmarket!
I admit, I am guilty of this on this blog!
Of course, I am not alone! Another is the documentary film director Franny Armstrong who directed the climate change alarmist movie “The Age of Stupid” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Age_of_Stupid) staring the late Pete Postlethwaite (above, one of my favourite actors).
Mr Postlethwaite (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Postlethwaite) played a man stranded in what was the Arctic but no longer (the planet had warmed). The movie was set in 2055.
Since I was born in 1955 it is highly unlikely that I will be alive in 2055 – so I won’t be around to say – “I told you this movie was nonsense!”
Nevertheless, many people in power appear to believe Ms Armstrong’s dystopian vision and are acting accordingly. The result is the steady de-industrialisation of Western Europe and the transference to nations such as India! In his blog-post today (https://www.turbulenttimes.co.uk/news/eu-affairs/energy-industrial-fallout/), Doctor North highlights this.
In contrast, a generally utopian vision for 2065AD was presented by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson in “Thunderbirds”. In addition to the six wheeled, 200mph, gas turbine powered Rolls Royce “FAB 1” there was the Fireflash (below):
The Fireflash, was a hypersonic airliner which appeared in the episodes “Trapped in the Sky”, “Operation Crash-Dive”, “The Impostors”, “The Man from MI.5” and “The Duchess Assignment”, as well as in a flashback sequence in “Security Hazard”.
It had six atomic motors that enable it to stay in the air for a maximum of six months; however, their radiation shielding must be maintained frequently, or the passengers will be able to spend a maximum of only three hours in the aircraft before succumbing to radiation sickness.
The craft weighed 1,806 tons, had a wingspan of 180 feet, is 380 feet in length, and it’s maximum speed was Mach 6 (approximately 4,500 mph or 7,200 km/h), and it could fly at heights above 250,000 feet (76,000 m). A novel feature was that the flight deck was built into the tail fin. Like many in real life, this aircraft had two decks, but also featured luxury facilities such as a cocktail lounge housed within glazed sections of the wings’ leading edges. Fireflash was commissioned by Air Terrainean (a.k.a. Terrainean Airways).
Now, whilst this aircraft may appear to be completely impractical and indeed impossible, a similar aircraft could after development be built in 2065!
In the 1950s the USAF experiment with an airborne nuclear reactor in a Convair B-36 bomber and nuclear propulsion has been proposed for rockets in space. Briefly such a rocket engine would work thus:
The traditional liquid fuel rocket features a fuel – kerosene or hydrogen and an oxidant such as high test peroxide or liquid oxygen. These are combined in the combustion chamber and ignited with the expansion of the gases through the exhaust nozzle providing the reactive propulsive thrust.
The nuclear rocket works in a fundamentally different way. Instead of a combustion chamber there is an expansion chamber and instead of a fuel and an oxidant there is a fluid (for explosive thermal expansion) and am energy source (a nuclear reactor). The energy is provided in the form of heat and the expansion fluid is liquid CO2!
Such an engine could indeed provide sufficient power to provide an aircraft of Fireflash’s dimensions the stated performance! Although being airborne for six months would require regular in flight refuelling!
There are designs for high performance Thorium based nuclear reactors with a high power to weight ratio operating at very high temperatures! These could provide the basis of such a motor! CO2 is used as it uniquely does NOT absorb neutrons and therefore the escaping gas does not become irradiated!
Which is why CO2 is used in the British Advanced Gas Cooled reactors!
Such an aircraft because it would in fact be recycling CO2 already produced be a Zero Carbon Aircraft!
IF such an aircraft takes to the skies in 2065 sadly I will not be around to see it! This is a very great pity as I would dearly love to see the looks of horror in the twenty somethings currently spraying orange paint on the windows of West London showrooms!