Quote:
Originally Posted by Kaijo
I'm not quite sure you understand nuclear rockets, but most people don't and thus why the idea wasn't pursued more heavily. They don't just out radiation to launch. There are tons of nuclear reactors around the world, and we haven't reduced our planet to a radioactive wasteland yet.
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Nuclear reactors are grounded and aren't moving around. People are afraid that they may blow up, but we're able to manage them and have also built a number of safeguards to prevent issues.
Rockets are mobile and move at high speed. You can't build the same protective mechanisms into a rocket as you can into a grounded reactor. If a rocket launch were to fail or if a rocket fell out of orbit and the rocket broke into dozens of pieces that scattered over a swath of land, you'd have some trouble.