Last winter, in 2019, a small nuclear reactor exploded on a military testing site in Russia, killing seven people and causing a brief spike in radioactivity in two nearby cities. Even now, the details are still scarce; Russia’s nuclear agency blamed tests concerning ‘isotopic sources of fuel on a liquid propulsion unit’. But evidence suggests that the mysterious accident was related to Russia’s development of the Burevestnik, a nuclear-powered cruise missile that would offer a nearly unlimited range, allowing it to fly for much longer than conventionally powered cruise missiles that exist already.
Not long after the explosion, US President Donald Trump revealed in a tweet that the United States has ‘similar, though more advanced technology’ to the Burevestnik, sometimes referred to as ‘Skyfall’. The problem? The US already looked into nuclear-powered cruise missiles more than 50 years ago – and rejected them as completely impractical.
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