2 ms·
They also couldn’t figure out how to test it. Once you turn it on, you can’t stop it, and if you lose control it could go anywhere on the planet.
by mikeash 9y ago
They also couldn’t figure out how to test it. Once you turn it on, you can’t stop it, and if you lose control it could go anywhere on the planet.
- Santosh83 9y agoCan you not stop it by sending it commands to turn off the reactor?
- mikeash 9y agoThen it’ll crash and you’ll have a nice Chernobyl to deal with.
- IdeaHamstir 9y agoSeveral orders of magnitude less than Chernobyl. The reactor that lost containment was a gigawatt production plant. A gigawatt nuclear ramjet would be so huge there would be no trouble detecting it and shooting it down near the launch site.
- mikeash 9y agoMost of Chernobyl’s material stayed in the reactor, though. A hypersonic crash would disperse a much bigger proportion of the material. I don’t know how the two factors balance out exactly.
- bbatha 9y agoJust crash it into the ocean, sea water is an excellent neutron moderator.