Random bit
We did in the real world once make a nuclear powered steam cannon.
Accidentally.
True story.
You see there was an underground nuclear test. This was in the early days when the USA and Russia were still figuring out just what these bad boys could do.
Well.
For the underground test they thought it would be a good idea to mitigate the risk by having the nuclear detonator submerged in water. This would help deal with the excess heat. They were really trying to study the shock wave, as in earthquake, type affects. So the heat was more an unwanted by product.
The water of course was in a vat. More of a tube. See where this is going? That tube of course had a hatch. Didn't want anything dangerous coming out right.
Well.
The sides of the tube incased in rock acted like the breech and barrel of a firearm. You know, not really expanding. Very much that is. I'm sure it got shaken and pulsed outward at least a little bit.
The water converted lots of energy into steam. Like a "Holy Victoria, Head of the Church of England" amount.
Steam by volume takes up more room than water. The expanding steam gases acted like a firearm's expanding gunpowder expanding.
Now remember that lid?
Compared to rock supported tube walls the lid was the weak point. So the lid was were the pressure broke through.
Better to say...
The lid was launched.
Beyond escape velocity. Like six times escape velocity.
Seriously. Beyond escape velocity.
There are theories that in the event of an actual hostile alien invasion we could use these nuclear steam cannons to shoot at the mother ships.
A nuclear bomb in space has no atmosphere to carry the shock wave so not much affect from a nearby detonation. The aliens being space travellers have probably made defenses against the radiation aspects.
A multi-ton super speed projectile though.
Well that's just old school smash them in the face, I mean hull, type of fighting.
And people think steam weapons aren't dangerous. Pashaaaa.
And at least one reference link for you:
http://www.deathvalley.com/dvt.../messages/4001.shtml
http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Tests/Plumbob.html
quote:
"Based upon his calculations and the evidence from the cameras, Brownlee estimated that the steel plate was traveling at a velocity six times that needed to escape Earth's gravity when it soared into the flawless blue Nevada sky. 'We never found it. It was gone,'"
Though sadly reading through my wonderful story is a bit off. It was the concrete that vaporized to be the expanding gas. Which in turn blew off the man hole cover.
The confusion coming form the proposed steam version to launch spaceships:
quote:
"In the mid-80s I heard of a "Project Thunderwell" from someone who had been employed at Livermore. In about 1991, I asked Dr. Lowell Wood about it, who was (and presumably still is) a prominent weapon physicist at Livermore. He told me that it was a project, never actually constructed, to launch a spacecraft on a column of nuclear-heated steam. The idea was that a deep shaft would be dug in the earth and filled with water. A spacecraft would be placed atop this shaft, and a nuclear explosive would be detonated at the bottom."
from:
http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Tests/Plumbob.html
This message was last edited by the player at 16:25, Tue 21 Feb 2017.