3 ms·
The standard answer is "there's too much of a risk that an explosion would spread nuclear waste through the atmosphere". These days I'm not sure if it's true -
by cperciva 6y ago
The standard answer is "there's too much of a risk that an explosion would spread nuclear waste through the atmosphere". These days I'm not sure if it's true -- we've learned a lot about building containers which are safe even during rapid unscheduled disassemblies, and used them e.g. when sending nuclear powered rovers to Mars -- but that's the usual concern.
- throwaway894345 6y agoI mean we’re wishing for a bucket that can survive terminal velocity impact with the earth and is yet light enough to ride a rocket, why not add to that wish that it could survive explosion from said rocket?
- perardi 6y agoI think there’s a few orders of magnitude difference in the amount of radioactive material in an RTG in a probe bounds for Mars, and the total radioactive daughter particle output of a nuclear reactor.