North American Lenticular Reentry Vehicle

[KJ_Lesnick]

I have some questions about the North American Lenticular Re-Entry Vehicle

Question 1: While I know this design was classified in 1962, was that around the time the design began development or was that earlier?

Question 2: They said it had a nuclear powered rocket?  Was this a rocket that used nuclear power to vaporize and burn fuel, or was it some kind of controlled nuclear explosion thing like the Orion?

Question 3: Why was this thing never built considering it could have laid waste to the Soviet Union with the push of a button?

[Hobbes]

Q2: it used a nuclear reactor:


Why it was never built: I guess the results of the NB-36 experiments with a nuclear reactor in an aircraft had something to do with it.

[rallymodeller]

3: SLBMs and ballistic missile subs were just coming into their own at that time, did the same job, and were much more effective. Remember, an SSBN can carry 20-24 Polaris missiles with 3-5 warheads each (far more than the LRV could carry) and could park for months offshore with a warning time to the Soviets of less than ten minutes from launch to impact. There was also the question of its legality given the treaties that had just been signed regarding the use of space-based nuclear weapons; if the Americans had fielded something like this you can be sure that the Soviets would have had something similar within a year, if not months (if they didn't already have one on the drawing board). Something like the LRV would have been an incredible escalation in the arms race.

[KJ_Lesnick]

While on a totally different note, the airplane was designed predominantly to go into orbit for six week missions.  As I understand it the plane had some atmospheric capability which included the use of a large balloon which would be replenished by helium tanks onboard the spacecraft to carry it a couple thousand miles, then drop away from it and engage the rocket engines and race over to the target at a presumably hypersonic speed.  The question is assuming it's known or not classified how far could it fly in the atmosphere and could they reach Mach 25 after dropping away from the balloon, or did they need boosters to get up to Mach 25?

There were claims of the use of a nuclear powered rocket on the design which may very well have been incorporated onto the design, but from what was suggested the vehicle had 9,000 to 10,000 pounds of hydrazine onboard which indicates (AFAIK) a non-nuclear rocket, though it had a nuclear reactor onboard for power-generation.