Coming To a War Near You: Nuclear Powered Drones

An anonymous reader writes "American scientists and engineers are researching a new generation of UAV's that would be nuclear-powered. Why do this? They would have the capacity to stay over a target area for months and only be limited by the ordinance they could drop on a potential foe. They would be similar to a nuclear attack submarine but not limited to the amount of food on-board. The article notes: 'The blueprints for the new drones, which have been developed by Sandia National Laboratories – the U.S. government's principal nuclear research and development agency – and defense contractor Northrop Grumman, were designed to increase flying time "from days to months" while making more power available for operating equipment, according to a project summary published by Sandia,' the paper reported."

Comments

Re:

[squidflakes]

Uhhh, you do realize that slashdot is group moderated by users with excellent karma, right?

Re:Downed drone plan?

[causality]

In all other cases where we implement nuclear technology, there's not a huge risk of it falling into enemy hands. So how will they address these concerns for a drone?

I don't believe the decision-makers are concerned about that. They have great security and lots of bunkers they can hide out in to maintain "continuity of government" etc.

For them, that risk is probably viewed as political capital (because it's all just a game and winning is all that counts). That's how sociopaths think. The whole 9/11 thing is wearing thin. Imagine how many pointless foreign wars of aggression you could justify if some enemy with an unpronouncable name who dresses funny had NUCLEAR SECRETS! You'd really be super-ultra unpatriotic to oppose THAT one.

If you're a private military contractor with lots of clout in Washington, then even the worst-case scenario is a goldmine. After all, it's not like it will be you personally or your own sons who go off to some foreign shithole to get shot at by the locals.