Burning Gas

On August 9^th, 1957, a team of Russian scientists brought a prototype reactor of a radical new kind to criticality. This reactor was fueled by gaseous uranium hexafluoride – the first gas-fueled reactor ever built.[KDG]

Realism in Atompunk

Sorry for how dead this has been; math has been keeping me busy.   Fortunately, my thesis is finally (finally) done, so with a little luck I'll be able to start posting more often again.   As a first installment on that promise, an essay of mine has been posted at Alternate History Weekly Update for its fifth anniversary: How to Write a Realistic Atompunk Timeline.

Under Cover: The Schoharie Valley Townsite Project

With Special Thanks to Anthony Casendino

In 1959, the Cornell College of Architecture launched a study to design a city that could survive nuclear attack. In the view of Prof. Fredrick W. Edmondson, existing cities were ill-suited to the demands of the Cold War, and he proposed to design from whole cloth a new alternative, better adapted to the rigors of the nuclear age. The Schoharie Valley Townsite project was one of the most ambitious civil defense proposals of the Cold War: a factory-town that could not only withstand nuclear attack, but maintain war production even as the hydrogen bombs burst around it.

Building a Spaceship in Dungeons and Dragons, Part II

Previous installment here.

Now we come to the interesting part: propulsion.