Pathfider II

This is OV-201. A one off space plane, it takes off using a runway with a ski jump under its own nuclear power in the form of three reactors fueled with enough weapon grade plutonium to make more than one and a half dozen bombs. The reactors are "wrapped" around the shafts of three turbojets, allowing it to fly like a normal aircraft in an atmosphere, but move about in space with with liquid nitrogen as a propellant. The fuel is encased in neutron reflectors, reducing the shielding requirements to two inches of depleted uranium and its shape prevents it from making a very large crater in the runway. The refelctors them selves are covered in ceramic reenforced with tungsten wire to protect it from the propellant whether it is air or nitrogen. The airframe is made mostly of titanium alloys, unlike its namesake's, which was mostly aluminum based and the heat shield is much thicker than those of the NASA orbiters and is reenforced with aluminum plates and ribs. There are also tile covering the internal airframe as well. These have resulted in speculation that one could shoot it with an M16A2 and not compromise its ability to reenter the atmosphere. It is also very heavy. Its weight almost exceeds that of the maximum take off weight of the NASA orbiters, despite being a third smaller. It found use as a method to deploy twelve nuclear warheads on two BusSats, satellite versions of the buses that were to be used prior to the SALT agreements to aim multiple warheads, in the Repossession War of 2043, in which Radio commandeered MLRS units and refitted them with nuclear warheads and aimed them at the Chinese that were trying to take the city. The BusSats were an added assurance of destruction.

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