[HN Gopher] Hyman Rickover on Nuclear Reactor Designs (1957) [pdf]
___________________________________________________________________
Hyman Rickover on Nuclear Reactor Designs (1957) [pdf]
Author : nkurz
Score : 25 points
Date : 2020-03-29 01:52 UTC (21 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (ecolo.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (ecolo.org)
| selimthegrim wrote:
| Rickover's behavior after the Thresher will forever nail him to
| history's pillar of shame.
| factchecker01 wrote:
| PBS had a good documentary on this.
|
| https://youtu.be/G0p8bWYY7qM
| nkurz wrote:
| You are likely familiar with the quip that "While in theory there
| is no difference between theory and practice, in practice there
| is." Here's a delightful letter by "The Father of the Nuclear
| Navy" Admiral Hyman Rickover
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyman_G._Rickover) on how that
| saying applies to nuclear reactor design. Excerpts:
|
| _An academic reactor or reactor plant almost always has the
| following basic characteristics: (1) It is simple. (2) It is
| small. (3) It is cheap. (4) It is light. (5) It can be built very
| quickly. (6) It is very flexible in purpose ( "omnibus reactor").
| (7) Very little develop- ment is required. It will use mostly
| "off-the-shelf" components. (8) The reactor is in the study
| phase. It is not being built now._
|
| _On the other hand, a practical reactor plant can be
| distinguished by the following characteristics: (1) It is being
| built now. (2) It is behind schedule. (3) It is requiring an
| immense amount of development on apparently trivial items.
| Corrosion, in particular, is a problem. (4) It is very expensive.
| (5) It takes a long time to build because of the engineering
| development problems. (6) It is large. (7) It is heavy. (8) It is
| complicated._
|
| It's a short two-page letter, so I won't excerpt more. It merits
| reading in full.
| freepor wrote:
| My preferred formulation is "In theory, it works in practice;
| in practice, it works in theory."
| [deleted]
| watersb wrote:
| My father-in-law was just getting used to his new posting when
| Admiral Rickover came for an inspection. Talk about pressure.
| dctoedt wrote:
| Another ex-Navy nuke here. More than 45 years later, I can still
| practically recite both sides of my interview with the KOG,*
| which was necessary to get into The Program.
|
| Excerpt:
|
| KOG: Why do you want in my program?
|
| Me: Because from what I've seen of the submarine fleet, there's a
| lot of professionalism there, and I'd like to be part of it.
| _[Later, in nuke school, I switched to surface and spent my time
| in an aircraft carrier, the Enterprise.]_
|
| KOG: So you don't think there's any professionalism in the
| surface fleet?
|
| Me: That's not what I said, sir.
|
| KOG _[to my escort officer, a senior officer in training to be a
| submarine skipper]_ : Read back what the kid said.
|
| Escort officer: "Mr. Toedt said he thought there was a lot of
| professionalism in the submarine fleet and he didn't think there
| was much in the surface fleet."
|
| KOG: _[Vigorously counsels me about my perceived shortcomings,
| ending with:]_ You 're shooting your g-dd-mn mouth off about
| something you don't know a g-dd-mn thing about.
|
| Me: _[Getting pissed:]_ That 's not what I said, Admiral.
|
| KOG: _[More vigorous imparting of wisdom, ending with:]_ Have you
| learned anything?
|
| Me: Yes, _sir_.
|
| KOG: What's that?
|
| Me: _[As angry as I 've ever been, before or since:]_ Not to
| shoot my [pause] mouth off about something I don't know a [pause]
| thing about [pause], sir.
|
| The interview went downhill from there. I figured I was headed to
| destroyer school, and was surprised as hell when the nice older
| lady congratulated me on being accepted and asked which of the
| two nuclear power schools did I want to go to.
|
| * KOG = Kindly Old Gentleman. The nuke joke was that he checked
| the box for just two out of those four things.
| nemosaltat wrote:
| Prior navy Nuke- it's hard to explain how much Rickover continues
| to permeate the Navy Nuclear program. When you start your naval
| nuclear career, you still literally have to go through Rickover.
| That is, the building where all naval nuclear training begins is
| "The Rickover" in Goose Greek, SC.
| redis_mlc wrote:
| WW2 Germany had Donitz, and Cold War US had Rickover - both were
| giants.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_D%C3%B6nitz
|
| Nuclear power is a game-changer, allowing aircraft carriers to
| sail completely around the globe at speeds fast enough to
| barefoot water-ski behind.
| JohnCClarke wrote:
| Wow! I wish the thorium enthusiasts would all read this.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2020-03-29 23:00 UTC)