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by officemonkey 2213 days ago
There used to be steam-powered and battery-powered cars in the early 20th Century. There was an Edison-Westinghouse war in electricity distribution.

Typically, a consensus is reached based on technical and economic limitations.

For example, nuclear-powered aircraft? You need shielding to protect the human crew. You also need a reactor that can survive a crash. That's why they use nuclear fuel for unmanned probes. There are no humans to protect, and it's a one-way trip.
2 comments
catalogia 2213 days ago
It's my understanding that if not for the development of ICBMs, the US might have created cruise missiles powered by unshielded nuclear reactors. They got as far as running a prototype engine for five minutes, but the whole project became pointless when it became clear ICBMs would work.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Pluto

Russia has seemingly been developing this same sort of technology in recent years. Presumably this is in response to anti-ballistic missile technology calling into question the future effectiveness of ICBMs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9M730_Burevestnik

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acidburnNSA 2213 days ago
Shielding is all probably doable, but still really hard and questionable. Here's a good chapter on the Human Factors of Nuclear Powered Flight: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015001555146&vi...
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