You are folk of many talents.
Does anyone have knowledge or insight(s) about the Russian "Burevestnik" ("storm petrel") 's engine / propulsion system - that they can comment without getting themselves into trouble ... ?
Coming from an American Professor who knows far more than he can possibly reveal, he does use publicly available information to assemble these facts - including "Western" intelligence-gathering sources:
- the cruise-missile flies at Mach0.75 (Mach0.6 more like Mach0.8)
- it flew at that speed for 15 days [so it cannot possibly be propelled by a chemical fuel - even if it had nothing but fuel on-board no chemical fuel is calorific enough]
- it did not trail any fission products [it is assumed if nuclear-propelled the neutron flux would activate the air for a few seconds - much as a BWR (Boiling-Water Reactor) activates the water / steam which circulates through the turbine-hall]
So - if it's not propelled by a fission-nuclear power-plant, the explanation would have to be even more "mind-bending" than that. It seems it is powered/propelled by a fission nuclear reactor.
It seems there was an American attempt in the 1950's - a test motor, if not a flying "thing" - but it trailed fission waste - which made it "only a demo" in being given a short test-run while being otherwise unusable.
So this "Burevestnik" seems to be nuclear-powered and is contained - and flies...
"contained" - doesn't trail nuclear fission waste - suggests serious materials-technology challenges have been overcome. The temperatures achieved and passed-on to the air going through the engine must be "something else". For a (ground-based) power-station the efficiency of the thing would make current PWR's and BWR's look like Newcomen's "atmospheric engine" comparing to a current steam-turbine plant...
There is speculation it's a "ramjet", with the heat provided by a nuclear reactor.
For a start, could anyone point me to a good source on what a "ramjet" is and how it works.
"Wikipedia" and the like comment that ramjets are mainly considered to work best at supersonic speeds - eg. Mach2.5 A ramject would work at Mach0.75?
I don't know how to take it beyond there.
Thanks for everything so far, and I will look if anyone can step-in and enlighten on this.
Regards, Rich Smith