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Internal combustion engines once look really complicated compared to horses too -- so many new problems to solve! -- but it was a forgone conclusion that cars
by jessriedel 9y ago
Internal combustion engines once look really complicated compared to horses too -- so many new problems to solve! -- but it was a forgone conclusion that cars would replace horses once the fundamental energy source could be harnesses.
That nuclear powered space travel is more economical and efficient at large scales isn't disputed by experts. The barriers reaching that scale are funding and political, not the engineering ones you've highlighted.
- Gravityloss 9y agoA more apt comparison might be coal fired steam. It was very unwieldy but replaced horses in some ways. Railroads and steam ships changed the world but still the technology was too heavy for personal mobility. If you can invent any kind of technology at will, sure, it can be great. Then let's have light and reliable space nuclear power plants. At the moment we are very far from that. It might have looked like a good choice forty years ago, but solar cells have improved a lot, as well as batteries. We do have some newish things on the nuclear side that could help, like gas cooled reactors or supercritical power cycles. You need to get the temperature up (to make the radiators small) and the power density too.
- jessriedel 9y agoNuclear rockets don't look much like the reactors used for power generation. We are much closer to the tech for efficient nuclear rockets than we are to the tech for an (even partially) self-sustaining colony on Mars.