Nuclear reactor with wings: how domestic nuclear aircraft strained the Pentagon. Nuclear plane: the most secret weapon of the USSR

During the Cold War, the parties threw all their efforts into finding a reliable means of delivering "special cargo".
In the late 40s, the scales leaned towards the bombers. The next decade was the "golden age" of aviation development.
Huge funding contributed to the emergence of the most fantastic aircraft, but the most incredible to this day seem to be the projects of supersonic bombers with nuclear rocket launchers developed in the USSR.

M-60

The M-60 bomber was supposed to be the first nuclear-powered aircraft in the USSR. It was created according to the drawings of its predecessor M-50 adapted for a nuclear reactor. The developed aircraft was supposed to reach speeds of up to 3200 km / h, with a weight of over 250 tons.

Special engine

A turbojet engine with a nuclear reactor (TRDA) is based on a conventional turbojet engine (TRD). Only in contrast to the turbojet engine, thrust in a nuclear engine is provided by heated air passing through the reactor, and not by the hot gases released during the combustion of kerosene.

Design feature

Looking at the layouts and sketches of all nuclear aircraft of that time, one can notice one important detail: they do not have a cockpit for the crew. To protect against radiation, the crew of a nuclear aircraft was located in a sealed lead capsule. And the lack of a visual review was replaced by an optical periscope, television and radar screens.

Autonomous control

Taking off and landing with a periscope is not an easy task. When the engineers realized this, a logical idea appeared - to make the aircraft unmanned. This decision also made it possible to reduce the weight of the bomber. However, for strategic reasons, the Air Force did not approve the project.

Nuclear seaplane M-60

At the same time, under the M-60M index, a supersonic aircraft with a nuclear engine capable of landing on water was being developed in parallel. Such seaplanes were placed in special self-propelled docks at bases on the coast. In March 1957, the project was closed, as nuclear-powered aircraft emitted a strong background radiation in their bases and adjacent waters.

M-30

The rejection of the M-60 project did not mean the end of work in this direction. And already in 1959, aircraft designers began to develop a new jet aircraft. This time, the thrust of its engines is provided by a new “closed” type nuclear power plant. By 1960, the preliminary design of the M-30 was ready. The new engine reduced the radioactive release, and it became possible to install a cockpit for the crew on the new aircraft. It was believed that no later than 1966, the M-30 would take to the air.

Funeral of a nuclear aircraft

But in 1960, at a meeting on the prospects for the development of strategic weapons systems, Khrushchev made a decision for which he is still called the gravedigger of aviation. After the scattered and indecisive reports of aircraft designers, they were asked to take on some of the orders on missile topics. All developments of nuclear-powered aircraft were frozen. Fortunately or unfortunately, it is no longer possible to find out what our world would have been like if the aircraft designers of the past had nevertheless completed their undertakings.

About aircraft, and to be more precise - nuclear-powered cruise missiles, the general public spoke not so long ago. The fact that they exist, are being developed and tested, became known after a corresponding statement by the President of the Russian Federation this spring.

Meanwhile, the very idea of ​​placing a nuclear power plant on an aircraft is not new - such machines were developed and even tested in the USSR, and a little more than ten years after the end of the Great Patriotic War.

In the 1950s of the last century in the USSR, unlike the United States, the creation of a bomber driven by atomic energy was considered not just as desirable, but as a vital task. This attitude was formed among the top leadership of the army and the military-industrial complex as a result of the realization of two circumstances.

Tu-95LAL

First, the enormous, overwhelming advantage of the United States in terms of the very possibility of an atomic bombing of the territory of a potential enemy. Operating from dozens of air bases in Europe, the Middle and Far East, US aircraft, even with a flight range of only 5-10 thousand km, could reach any point in the USSR and return back. Soviet bombers were forced to work from airfields on their own territory and for a similar raid on the United States they had to overcome 15-20 thousand km. There were no planes with such a range in the USSR at all.

The first Soviet strategic bombers M-4 and Tu-95 could "cover" only the very north of the United States and relatively small sections of both coasts. But even these machines in 1957, there were only 22. And the number of American aircraft capable of attacking the USSR had reached 1800 by that time! Moreover, these were first-class bombers carrying atomic weapons B-52, B-36, B-47, and a couple of years later they were joined by supersonic B-58s.

A. N. Tupolev and I. F. Nezval

This situation could be corrected only by an aircraft with a nuclear engine, capable of providing an almost unlimited time spent in the air. As part of the creation of the Soviet atomic bomber at the end of 1957, along with other organizations, the A. N. Tupolev Design Bureau was involved in the implementation of this grandiose idea. He was entrusted with the creation of a special flying nuclear laboratory (LAL).

Specifically, this topic was supposed to deal with the branch of the Design Bureau of A.N. Tupolev in the small village of Tomilino near Moscow. In 1957, one of the oldest associates of the general designer, the future Hero of Socialist Labor, Iosif Fomich Nezval, was appointed his chief.

Tomilinsky branch

Becoming the head of the branch, Nezval began by strengthening the design bureau. A group of designers consisting of about forty people moved to Tomilino.

With the appointment of Nezval as the head of the Tomilinsky branch, he essentially became the director of the enterprise and, according to his position, had to deal not only with the design bureau, but also with production, supply, personnel, life, construction and other issues. In a word, a lot of problems fell on him that he had not had to deal with before. But Nezval coped with it.

Nuclear reactor

Middle part of LAL

Together with a special research institute, Nezval recalled, the OKB was instructed to install a low-power reactor on the aircraft in order to study its effect on the crew and electronic equipment. At this stage, the task of the design bureau was to develop the most compact placement on a special platform of both the object itself and all the systems necessary for its normal operation.

This platform, when assembled, was to be lifted inside the fuselage through a special hatch with the help of winches and fixed there with locks. The platform with the reactor had to be periodically inspected, and therefore it was required that it could freely fall to the ground.

Lifting platform with nuclear reactor

The production performance of the stand and the modification of the aircraft for the installation of a platform with a reactor were also entrusted to the Tomilinsky branch. For the construction, the middle part of the Tu-95 fuselage, which was available at the plant, was used, which, after the necessary modifications and strengthening of the structure, was installed on special supports with lodgements at a height corresponding to the parking position of the aircraft. This part of the work for the designers was familiar and did not present any difficulty.

As for the materials used to protect against radioactive radiation, there were a lot of new and unknown things here. In particular, completely new materials were used for biological protection, which designers had not dealt with before. Engineers had to work with materials such as polyethylene and boron carbide doped ceresin. To process them, it was necessary to develop a completely new technology.

The composition of these materials and the recipe for their manufacture were developed by the head of the non-metal laboratory of the branch, A. S. Fainshtein, together with specialists from the Soviet chemical industry. These materials were tested at a special institute and were found suitable for use both on a bench installation and for an aircraft. They were supplied in the form of small cubes, which had to be connected to each other into large blocks, and then give them the desired configuration.

Docked parts of the fuselage LAL

When the stand was completely finished, the heads of the special institute came to see it. Having examined the stand in detail, they were amazed at the compactness with which the platform was made with the installation of the reactor and all equipment.

In 1958, the stand was completely finished and transported to one of the eastern airfields, where a place had already been allocated for its permanent residence. In 1959, its first launch took place. The results obtained turned out to be quite satisfactory and made it possible to carry out similar work on this topic on an airplane.

Flight tests

By the spring of 1961, “... the plane was standing at an airfield near Moscow,” recalled one of its creators, nuclear scientist N. N. Ponomarev-Stepnoy, “and A. N. Tupolev arrived with Minister P. V. Dementyev to see on him. Tupolev explained the system for protecting a person from radiation: “... It is necessary that there is not the slightest gap, otherwise the neutrons will come out through it.” “So what?” the minister did not understand. And then Tupolev explained in a simple way: “On a frosty day you will go out onto the airfield, and your fly will be unbuttoned - everything will freeze!” The minister laughed - they say, now everything is clear with neutrons ... "

LAL in flight

From May to August 1961, 34 flights were made on the Tu-95LAL. The plane was flown by test pilots M. M. Nyukhtikov, E. A. Goryunov, M. A. Zhila and others, the engineer N. V. Lashkevich was the leader of the car. The head of the experiment, nuclear scientist N. Ponomarev-Stepnoy, and operator V. Mordashev took part in the flight tests.

Tests of the Tu-95LAL showed the high efficiency of the applied nuclear plant and radiation protection system, but at the same time revealed its bulkiness, too much weight and the need for further improvement. And the main danger of a nuclear aircraft was recognized as the possibility of its accident and contamination of large spaces.

In addition, the cost of creating an aircraft with a nuclear power plant was estimated at 1 billion Soviet rubles, therefore, due to the high cost, funding for the work was denied.

The data obtained during the tests of the Tu-95LAL allowed the Design Bureau of A. N. Tupolev, together with related organizations, to develop a large-scale, two-decade program for the development of heavy combat aircraft with nuclear power plants. However, the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union prevented the implementation of this project.

Alexander Kurganov.

In the mid-50s - early 60s of the last century, the USSR began to develop an aircraft with a nuclear power plant. The flying nuclear laboratory based on the Tu-95M aircraft, having passed tests on a ground stand, conducted a series of experimental flights in 1962-1963, but the program was soon curtailed (see "Science and Life" No. 6, 2008). The results of those tests are almost forgotten today. And those who created the nuclear aircraft, who can collect and generalize the unique experience, remain alive, alas, less and less. Recalls the participant of the project, the scientific secretary of the Research Institute of Aviation Equipment Alexander Vasilievich Kurganov, in the past the lead flight test engineer of the Flight Research Institute and the head of the team for testing on-board equipment at the flying nuclear laboratory.

Science and life // Illustrations

A flying nuclear laboratory created on the basis of the Tu-95M aircraft and equipped with a nuclear reactor - an imitator of a real nuclear power plant.

Distribution of the neutron flux emitted by the WWR-2 nuclear reactor installed on the Tu-95M. The test flight took place with one open gate (damper) of the reactor protection.

Scheme of the pressurized water power reactor VVER-2, on which the first tests of aviation equipment for radiation resistance were carried out.

A. V. Kurganov received this watch and a note from the hands of the General Designer A. N. Tupolev for participating in the creation of an aircraft with a nuclear engine.

In the 1950s, the Soviet Union took successful steps in the development of nuclear energy. The first domestic nuclear power plant was already operating, and projects for nuclear icebreakers and submarines were being developed. The head of the Soviet atomic project, Igor Vasilyevich Kurchatov, decided that the time had come to raise the question of creating a nuclear aircraft.

The advantages of nuclear engines were obvious: practically unlimited range and flight duration with minimal fuel consumption - just a few grams of uranium for tens of hours of flight. Such an aircraft opened up the most tempting prospects for military aviation. However, the first studies of the project showed that it was not possible to completely protect the aircraft from the release of radioactive radiation outside the reactor design. Then it was decided to create the so-called shadow protection of the cockpit, and all on-board equipment outside the cockpit, subject to gamma-neutron radiation, should be carefully examined. The first step was to find out how unprotected devices would behave when the reactor was running.

The effect of radioactive radiation on on-board equipment was studied by employees of the Flight Research Institute (LII) and the Institute of Atomic Energy (IAE). This is how the commonwealth of engineers and designers, aviation equipment specialists and nuclear physicists has developed. For research at the IAE, we were given the VVER-2 reactor, in which water cools the apparatus and simultaneously serves as a neutron moderator to the energies required to maintain a controlled chain reaction.

The group was led by V.N. Suchkov. A. V. Kurganov, Yu. P. Gavrilov, R. M. Kostrigina, M. K. Bushuev,
B. M. Sorokin, V. P. Konarev, V. K. Seleznev, L. V. Romanenko, N. I. Makarov, V. P. Fedorenko, I. T. Smirnov, G. P. Brusnikin, N. N. Soldatov, I. G. Khvedchenya, A. S. Mikhailov, V. M. Gruzdov, V. S. Lisitsin and others. From the Institute of Atomic Energy, the experimental work was supervised by G. N. Stepanov, N. A. Ukhin, A. A. Shapkin.

Even at the very beginning of the experiments, the specialists faced a number of difficulties. First, the instruments and equipment under study were rather strongly heated due to the absorption of radiation energy. Secondly, visual control, and any contact with the studied samples, was completely excluded. Thirdly, for the purity of the experiments, it was very important to conduct research under conditions as close as possible to flight conditions, and at altitude, unpressurized aircraft equipment operates in a rarefied atmosphere. To create a rarefaction of the air, they designed small-sized pressure chambers, from which a special compressor pumped out air. The devices under study were installed in pressure chambers and placed in the channel of an atomic reactor near its active zone.

Subsequently, the following were connected to the experiments: the first nuclear power plant at the Physico-Energy Institute. A. I. Leipunsky (IPPE), irradiation facilities in the branch of the Physico-Chemical Institute. L. Ya. Karpova (FHI) in Obninsk. As a result of these works, for the first time in the country, the real radiation resistance of onboard aviation equipment and the most sensitive products, elements and materials were determined, a “hierarchy” of radiation resistance by type of equipment was revealed, and other important issues were resolved.

The next stage of work under the program for creating a nuclear aircraft was the development and construction of a ground-based testbed for a flying nuclear laboratory (LAL). The stand was needed to conduct dosimetric studies in the real configuration of the Tu-95M aircraft, as well as to assess the performance of products in real conditions. On the stand, radio-technical on-board equipment and electrical units were investigated, the amount of radioactivity caused by the impact of neutrons, as well as its decline in time, was estimated. These data were very important in terms of operation and post-flight maintenance of the aircraft.

I recall an episode that alarmed the entire group, connected with the operation of the reactor. One day, during a control inspection, the operator noticed abundant white foam on the water surface of the tank, similar to the foam of washing powder. The nuclear workers were worried: if it is organic foam, it’s not so bad - somewhere the gasket “gases”, and if it’s inorganic - much worse - corrosion of aluminum is possible, from which the bodies of fuel elements (TV elements) are made, and they contain nuclear fuel - uranium. Everyone understood that the destruction of TVEL cases could lead to catastrophic consequences.

To understand the situation, first of all it was necessary to determine the chemical composition of the foam. We took samples and went to Semipalatinsk, to the nearest laboratory. But chemists have not figured out whether it is organic or not.

One of the leading specialists of the IAE urgently flew to the facility and advised that the first thing to do would be to flush the reactor tank with alcohol. But this procedure did not help - the apparatus continued to drive foam. Then we decided to once again carefully examine the entire structure of the reactor from the inside. In order not to “grab” an increased dose of radiation, it was possible to work inside the tank for no more than five minutes. The inspection was carried out by young mechanics from the OKB. A. N. Tupolev. Finally, one of them shouted “Found!” got out of the tank, holding a piece of microporous rubber in his hands. How this foreign object got there, one can only guess.

In May 1962, the stage of flight tests began, in which our brigade participated. Dosimetric and other studies in flight conditions have shown that during the operation of the reactor, the radio communication range is reduced under the influence of a neutron flux, and the oxygen located in special containers outside the protected cabin, which the crew breathes during high-altitude flight, is activated (it was found to contain ozone molecules - O 3). At the same time, the elements of electrical equipment worked quite steadily.

Large-scale and very interesting work on the creation of a nuclear aircraft, unfortunately, was not completed. The program was closed, but participation in it remained in the memory for life. In the future, I had to deal with various flight and space experiments, flight tests on the first supersonic passenger aircraft Tu-144 and the launch of the Buran reusable spacecraft. I received various awards, but the most expensive among them was the watch that was presented to me by the General Designer, Academician Andrei Nikolaevich Tupolev, for participating in the project to create a nuclear aircraft. The clock still works great and has become a family heirloom.

In the post-war period, the victorious world was intoxicated by the new nuclear possibilities. Moreover, we are talking not only about the weapons potential, but also about the completely peaceful use of the atom. In the United States, for example, in addition to atomic tanks, they started talking about creating even such household trifles as vacuum cleaners that work on a nuclear chain reaction.

In 1955, the head of Lewyt promised to release an atomic vacuum cleaner within the next 10 years.

In early 1946, the United States, then the only country with a nuclear arsenal, decided to build a nuclear-powered aircraft. But due to unexpected difficulties, work progressed extremely slowly. Only nine years later, it was possible to lift an aircraft with a nuclear reactor on board into the air. According to Soviet intelligence, it was too early to talk about a full-fledged glider with a nuclear engine: the secret object was indeed equipped with a nuclear installation, but it was not connected to the motors and served only for testing.

Nevertheless, there was nowhere to go - since the Americans had gone so far, it means that the USSR should work in the same direction. On August 12 of the same 1955, a decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR No. 1561-868 was issued, instructing aviation enterprises to begin designing a Soviet atomolet.

Flying "duck" M-60/M-30

A difficult task was set immediately before several design bureaus. In particular, the bureau of A. N. Tupolev and V. M. Myasishchev had to develop aircraft capable of operating on nuclear power plants. And the bureau of N. D. Kuznetsov and A. M. Lyulka was instructed to build those same power plants. These, like all other atomic projects of the USSR, were supervised by the "father" of the Soviet atomic bomb, Igor Kurchatov.

Igor Kurchatov

Why were the same tasks assigned to several design bureaus? Thus, the government wanted to support the competitive nature of the work of engineers. The lag behind the United States was decent, so it was necessary to catch up with the Americans by any means.

All workers were warned - this is a project of national importance, on which the security of the homeland depends. According to the engineers, overtime work was not encouraged - it was considered the norm. Theoretically, the worker could go home at 18:00, but his colleagues looked at him as an accomplice of the enemy of the people. The next day it was impossible to return.

First, the Myasishchev Design Bureau took the initiative. The local engineers proposed a project for the M-60 supersonic bomber. In fact, it was about equipping the already existing M-50 with a nuclear reactor. The problem of the first in the USSR supersonic strategic carrier M-50 was just catastrophic fuel "appetites". Even with two refuelings in the air with 500 tons of kerosene, the bomber could hardly fly to Washington and return back.

It seemed that all issues were to be solved by an atomic engine, which guaranteed an almost unlimited range and duration of flight. A few grams of uranium would be enough for tens of hours of flight. It was believed that in emergency cases, the crew could barrage non-stop in the air for two weeks.

The M-60 aircraft was planned to be equipped with an open-type nuclear power plant, designed in the bureau of Arkhip Lyulka. Such engines were noticeably simpler and cheaper, but, as it turned out later, they had no place in aviation.

Combined turbojet-atomic engine. 1 - electric starter; 2 - shutters; 3 - air duct of the direct-flow circuit; 4 - compressor; 5 - combustion chamber; 6 - nuclear reactor body; 7 - fuel assembly

So, for safety reasons, the nuclear installation had to be located as far as possible from the crew. The tail section of the fuselage was the best fit. It was supposed to place four nuclear turbojet engines there. Next was the bomb bay and, finally, the cockpit. They wanted to put the pilots in a blind lead capsule weighing 60 tons. It was planned to compensate for the lack of a visual review with the help of radar and television screens, as well as periscopes. Many functions of the crew were assigned to automation, and subsequently it was proposed to completely transfer the device to a fully autonomous unmanned control.

Crew cabin. 1 - dashboard; 2 - ejection capsules; 3 - emergency hatch; 4 - the position of the hatch cover when entering and exiting the cabin and ejection; 5 - lead; 6 - lithium hydride; 7 - hatch drive

Due to the "dirty" type of engines used, the maintenance of the M-60 supersonic strategic bomber had to be carried out with minimal human participation. So, the power plants were supposed to "cling" to the aircraft right before the flight in automatic mode. Refueling, delivery of pilots, preparation of weapons - all this was also supposed to be done by "robots". Of course, to service such aircraft, a complete restructuring of the existing airfield infrastructure was required, up to the rolling of new runways at least half a meter thick.

Due to all these difficulties, the M-60 project had to be closed at the drawing stage. Instead, it was supposed to build another atomolet - the M-30 with a closed-type nuclear installation. At the same time, the design of the reactor was much more complicated, but the issue of radiation protection was not so acute. The plane was supposed to be equipped with six turbojet engines powered by one nuclear reactor. If necessary, the power plant could run on kerosene. The mass of protection for the crew and engines was almost half that of the M-60, thanks to which the aircraft could carry a payload of 25 tons.

The first flight of the M-30 with a wingspan of about 30 meters was scheduled for 1966. However, this machine was not destined to leave the drawings and at least partially translate into reality. By 1960, in the confrontation between aviation and rocket scientists, there was a victory for the latter. Khrushchev was convinced that aircraft were not as important today as they used to be, and the key role in the fight against an external enemy was transferred to missiles. As a result, almost all promising programs for nuclear aircraft were curtailed and the corresponding design bureaus were restructured. This fate did not pass by the Myasishchev Design Bureau, which lost the status of an independent unit and was reoriented to the rocket and space industry. But the aircraft manufacturers had one more, last hope.

Subsonic "carcass"

The design bureau of A. N. Tupolev was more fortunate. Here, engineers, in parallel with the Myasishchevites, worked on their own project of an atomolet. But unlike the M-60 or M-30, it was a much more realistic model. Firstly, it was about creating a subsonic bomber at a nuclear installation, which was much easier compared to the development of a supersonic aircraft. Secondly, the car did not have to be reinvented at all - the existing Tu-95 bomber was suitable for the goals set. In fact, it was only necessary to equip it with a nuclear reactor.

Andrey Tupolev

In March 1956, the Council of Ministers of the USSR instructed Tupolev to start designing a flying nuclear laboratory based on the serial Tu-95. First of all, it was necessary to do something with the dimensions of existing nuclear reactors. It is one thing to equip a huge icebreaker with a nuclear installation, for which there were actually no weight and size restrictions. It is quite another to place the reactor in a rather limited space of the fuselage.

Tu-95

Atomic scientists argued that in any case, one should count on an installation the size of a small house. And yet, the engineers of the Tupolev Design Bureau were given the task of reducing the dimensions of the reactor by all means. Each extra kilogram of the weight of the power plant pulls in the form of protection another three extra kilograms of load on the aircraft. Therefore, the struggle was literally for every gram. There were no restrictions - money was allocated as much as needed. The designer, who found a way to reduce the weight of the installation, was paid a solid bonus.

In the end, Andrey Tupolev showed a reactor the size of a huge, but still a cabinet, and fully complying with all protection requirements. According to legend, the aircraft designer at the same time, not without pride, declared that “they don’t carry houses on airplanes,” and the chief Soviet nuclear scientist Igor Kurchatov was at first sure that he had only a mock-up reactor in front of him, and not a working model.

Nuclear reactor in the bowels of the Tu-95

As a result, the installation was accepted and approved. However, first it was necessary to conduct a series of ground tests. On the basis of the middle part of the bomber fuselage, a stand with a nuclear plant was built at one of the airfields near Semipalatinsk. During testing, the reactor reached the specified power level. As it turned out, the biggest problem concerned not so much the reactor as biosecurity and the operation of electronics - living organisms received too high a dose of radiation, and devices could behave unpredictably. It was decided that from now on, the main attention should be paid not to the reactor, which in principle was ready for use in aircraft, but to reliable protection against radiation.

The first defense options were too grandiose. Participants in the events recall a filter as high as a 14-story building, 12 "floors" of which went underground, and two towered above the surface. The thickness of the protective layer reached half a meter. Of course, it was impossible to find a practical application for such technologies in an atomolet.

Maybe it was worth taking advantage of the developments of Myasishchev Design Bureau engineers and hiding the crew in a lead capsule without windows and doors? This option was not suitable due to size and weight. Therefore, they came up with a completely new type of protection. It was a coating of lead plates 5 centimeters thick and a 20-cm layer of polyethylene and ceresin - a product obtained from petroleum feedstock and vaguely reminiscent of laundry soap.

Surprisingly, the Tupolev Bureau managed to survive the difficult year 1960 for aircraft designers. Not least due to the fact that the atomolet based on the Tu-95 was already a very real machine capable of taking to the air on nuclear power in the coming years. It remains only to conduct air tests.

In May 1961, a bomber Tu-95M No. 7800408 stuffed with sensors with a nuclear reactor on board and four turboprop engines with a capacity of 15,000 horsepower each took to the skies. The nuclear power plant was not connected to the motors - the plane was flying on jet fuel, and a working reactor was still needed in order to assess the behavior of the equipment and the level of exposure of the pilots. In total, from May to August, the bomber made 34 test flights.

It turned out that during the two-day flight, the pilots received exposure to 5 rem. For comparison, today for workers at nuclear power plants, exposure to 2 rem is considered the norm, but not for two days, but for a year. It was assumed that the crew of the aircraft will include men over 40 years old who already have children.

The bomber hull also absorbed the radiation, which after the flight had to be isolated for “cleaning” for several days. In general, radiation protection was recognized as effective, but unfinished. In addition, for a long time no one knew what to do with the possible accidents of atomolets and the subsequent contamination of large spaces with nuclear components. Subsequently, it was proposed to equip the reactor with a parachute system capable of separating the nuclear installation from the aircraft body in an emergency and gently landing it.

But it was too late - suddenly no one needed bombers. It turned out to be much more convenient and cheaper to bombard enemies with something more deadly with the help of intercontinental ballistic missiles or stealthy nuclear submarines. Andrei Tupolev, however, did not lose hope of building an atomolet. He hoped that in the 1970s the development of supersonic nuclear aircraft Tu-120 would begin, but these hopes were not destined to come true. Following the United States, in the mid-1960s, the USSR stopped all research related to nuclear aircraft. The nuclear reactor was also planned to be used in aircraft focused on hunting for submarines. They even carried out several tests of the An-22 with a nuclear plant on board, but one could only dream of the former scale. Despite the fact that in the USSR they came close to creating a nuclear aircraft (in fact, it only remained to connect a nuclear installation to engines), they did not reach the dream.

The re-equipped and passed dozens of tests, the Tu-95, which could become the world's first atomic aircraft, stood for a long time at the airfield near Semipalatinsk. After the reactor was removed, the aircraft was handed over to the Irkutsk Military Aviation Technical School, and during the restructuring, it was scrapped.

For the last hundred years, aviation has played such a big role in the history of mankind that this or that project could easily turn the development of civilization. Who knows, perhaps if history had gone a little differently, and today passenger nuclear planes would surf the sky, grandmother’s carpets would be cleaned with nuclear-powered vacuum cleaners, it would be enough to charge smartphones once every five years, and to Mars and back five times a year. spaceships would cruise around during the day. It seemed that half a century ago the most difficult task was solved. That's just the results of the decision so no one took advantage.