~16felt that P & W's engine development had not gone far enough that one
could judge the whole.
Dr. Hafstad remarked that P & W could move
fast if they had the pertinent information on the reactor, but he
doubted that enough new information would become available to make
& review in six months.
Mr. Whitman commented on the lack of integration between the two
teams (reactor and engine) at Oak Ridge,
less than at Lockland,
It seemed to have developed
Dr, Hafstad said that the apparent lack of
enthusiasm on the part of Pratt & Whitney was real,
They had entered
joint operation with Oak Ridge at the insistence of the AEC, and
regarded the arrangement as a shot-gun marriage, against their own
preference,
There were several comments on the heterogeneous, sodium cooled
ESEESSEOFConcept (NDA proposal).
Mr. Murphree,’in particular, was
worried that this approach was being neglected,
Dr. Hafstad said it
would be hard to defend three parallel approaches, and indicated he
felt that undertaking this approach should be deferred until it was
possible to decide against one of the other two.
He felt that a choice
between the direct cycle and the sodium cooled heterogeneous reactors
might be made (with the aid of the GAC) by next summer after more
information was developed on the direct cycle reactor.
Dr. Wigner
observed that one would never want to throw out the direct cycle
approach; and, in reference to the idea of waiting to see before