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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

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.

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.