5 ms·

As I have detailed here before as a schoolchild in Detroit our class visited the Enrico Fermi nuclear power plant. In a movie that we saw at the plant in the e

by rmason 6y ago

As I have detailed here before as a schoolchild in Detroit our class visited the Enrico Fermi nuclear power plant. In a movie that we saw at the plant in the early sixties they envisioned nuclear powered automobiles. Ford even created a concept car called the Nucleon as a demonstration of what a nuclear powered car would look like. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Nucleon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Nucleon

bawolff 6y ago
I remember reading the foundation trilogy, and they used the word nuclear the way that modern sf uses the word quantum. Need a watch you don't need to wind, its nuclear! Need a shield generator for your space ship? Nuclear!
mellosouls 6y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Bus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Bus Movie about a nuclear powered bus.
catalogia 6y ago
In the 50s Chrysler's tank division proposed a truly bizarre nuclear powered tank: http://www.diseno-art.com/encyclopedia/strange_vehicles/chrysler_tv-8_nuclear_powered_tank.html http://www.diseno-art.com/encyclopedia/strange_vehicles/chry...
acidburnNSA 6y ago
The Nucleon was a gag. Nobody serious thought there would be nuclear-powered cars even in the 1950s. There are even intros to textbooks that dismiss the idea as "not within the bounds of reality", as Glasstone did in 1956 [1] [1] https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015003994194&view=1up&seq=19 https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015003994194&vi... Of course today there are literal nuclear-powered cars all over the place. They're electric cars charged by nearby nuclear power stations. But I guess that's semantics.
- rmason 6y ago
  No based on what I saw at the time it was taken seriously. Some of these guys were dreamers in the nuclear industry. They made a push and it flopped. All I know as a 10 year old boy when I asked about what would happen in an auto accident to the cars reactor they didn't have a very good answer.
  - kortilla 6y ago
    If they didn’t have a good answer, they weren’t taking it seriously.
- catalogia 6y ago
  Nuclear reactors almost small enough to make it feasible (but not a good idea) have been created before. TOPAZ and SNAP-10A from the 60s and 70s come to mind. A TOPAZ-I reactor weighing 320kg and could produce 5kW for 3-5 years. That's not good enough for a car, but I think it's impressive nevertheless. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SNAP-10A#/media/File:SNAP_10A_Space_Nuclear_Power_Plant.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SNAP-10A#/media/File:SNAP_10A_... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOPAZ_nuclear_reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOPAZ_nuclear_reactor
  - acidburnNSA 6y ago
    Things are either forbidden by the laws of physics or possible, so yeah it is physically feasible. But it is not within the bounds of reality because the cores for those two reactors are millions of dollars and the weights don't include the shielding necessary to operate without dying. Those space reactors are indeed awesome. Nuclear has a rich future in space in almost all possible scenarios where humans continue to exist.
deleted 6y ago
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by rmason 6y ago

bawolff 6y ago

I remember reading the foundation trilogy, and they used the word nuclear the way that modern sf uses the word quantum. Need a watch you don't need to wind, its nuclear! Need a shield generator for your space ship? Nuclear!

mellosouls 6y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Bus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Bus Movie about a nuclear powered bus.

catalogia 6y ago

In the 50s Chrysler's tank division proposed a truly bizarre nuclear powered tank: http://www.diseno-art.com/encyclopedia/strange_vehicles/chrysler_tv-8_nuclear_powered_tank.html http://www.diseno-art.com/encyclopedia/strange_vehicles/chry...

acidburnNSA 6y ago

The Nucleon was a gag. Nobody serious thought there would be nuclear-powered cars even in the 1950s. There are even intros to textbooks that dismiss the idea as "not within the bounds of reality", as Glasstone did in 1956 [1] [1] https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015003994194&view=1up&seq=19 https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015003994194&vi... Of course today there are literal nuclear-powered cars all over the place. They're electric cars charged by nearby nuclear power stations. But I guess that's semantics.

rmason 6y ago
No based on what I saw at the time it was taken seriously. Some of these guys were dreamers in the nuclear industry. They made a push and it flopped. All I know as a 10 year old boy when I asked about what would happen in an auto accident to the cars reactor they didn't have a very good answer.
- kortilla 6y ago
  If they didn’t have a good answer, they weren’t taking it seriously.
catalogia 6y ago
Nuclear reactors almost small enough to make it feasible (but not a good idea) have been created before. TOPAZ and SNAP-10A from the 60s and 70s come to mind. A TOPAZ-I reactor weighing 320kg and could produce 5kW for 3-5 years. That's not good enough for a car, but I think it's impressive nevertheless. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SNAP-10A#/media/File:SNAP_10A_Space_Nuclear_Power_Plant.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SNAP-10A#/media/File:SNAP_10A_... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOPAZ_nuclear_reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOPAZ_nuclear_reactor
- acidburnNSA 6y ago
  Things are either forbidden by the laws of physics or possible, so yeah it is physically feasible. But it is not within the bounds of reality because the cores for those two reactors are millions of dollars and the weights don't include the shielding necessary to operate without dying. Those space reactors are indeed awesome. Nuclear has a rich future in space in almost all possible scenarios where humans continue to exist.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]