http://www.nysun.com/foreign/new-russian-icbm-hits-target-in-test/86151

This ICBM seems to be appropriate as a transport vehicle for accident-free and thus tolerable deliveries of nuclear material into space.

According to missilethreat.com it is a weapon that has been "shielded against radiation, electromagnetic interference and physical disturbance" and also "is designed to be able to withstand nuclear blasts as close as 500 meters."

Presumably the Russians won't give away this technology for more civilized intentions.

I happen to agree with you wholeheartedly about the ridiculousness of the anti-nuke group.

It's completely baseless and in fact the anti-nuclear sentiments have HURT the environment far more than helped it, by forcing us to continue burning fossil fuels for our energy needs.

But do not confuse bad science from the anti-nuke group with good science from the global warming crowd.

There is no one, not even the BUSH ADMINISTRATION for the love of Pete, that does not now accept that global warming is a fact.

It is happening, and it will have serious consequences for us and our descendants. Whether it is caused or made worse by humans is up for debate. Whether it is in fact happening IS NOT.

There is no lack of consensus in the scientific community. The only people who disagree are politicians, pundits, and idiots.

The only question in my mind that we need to be focusing on is:

HOW do we combat the fatal and in many cases irreversible effects of global warming, * before * they become fatal and irreversible?

At no point did I say that I am against the use of nuclear technology. With other words: I do affirm nuclear technology! That is my standpoint in this matter. Is that clear enough for you?

However!

I tell you that you did in no way perceive and understand the full extend of the Tschernobyl accident. Nor did you understand the sorrow and missery inflicted.

And, as far as I know, your "optimisitc" approach does not differ so much from the one the operators of reactor # 4 showed. Yes, they followed your standards (you said: "We will all die, but before that, we have to LIVE") and so the first thing they did in that night was to leave post and evacuate their families! This is the consequence of your phrase. It is opportunism. But hazardous projects require the opposite of opportunism. They require integrity. And reason.

We also don't have car accidents because they occure but we be killed in accidents because somebody was careless. Vigilance is highest priority in context with our use of atomic energy, 24 hours at 365.25 days per year. Who does not meet this requirement should not be allowed to administer our nuclear plants.

Finally, , people sometimes don't drive because they need it to survive but simple because they are too fat to walk five hundred yards.

Nuclear power is actually way past that point, and the culprit seems to be an irrational bias against spectacular accidents. We fear nuclear, when coal and oil kills a tenfold more per TWh, but silently so.

Let me comment on one of your original arguments regarding rocket accidents: Moderately enriched uranium is not that radioactive, actually. It gets really bad only after some fuel is burnt up, forming more short-lived isotopes. Also, the reactor will be so encased, and the fuel so prepared, that it will in all likelyhood fall in one piece, being easily recovered.

And no, I won't agree with you even if my back yard is contaminated.

I'm too old to sympathize with anarchistic ideals one more time.

People can't drive cars without rules. Don't forget that if you kill or hurt somebody else with your POV you can go to jail. I, e.g., like to see people in jail which killed innocent others by drunk driving. You are responsible for real others, not simply for an abstraction like "have to LIVE" ( I confess that I hate to live and die by absurd rules

If we decide that it is worth for us to be killed by cancer, car accident or careless handling of nuclear material so that others may live, if this is all so simple, then I wonder why there are laws and courts of justice and convictions. I guess that you will share my point of view as soon as my nuclear material contaminates your backyard. Some people hate others for less than being venomed by them. Even a different opinion can be enough cause.

So be careful how you drive, where you smoke your pipe and whom you give an overdose of radiation.

Yes, Tjernobyl, an inferior design, was provoked into blowing, killed about a fifty people, and will cause, in all, perhaps ten thousand cancer cases. Meanwhile, EVERY DAY, 20,000 die from "ordinary" cancer. Every day, 3000 die in road accidents. But cars are useful, and so is nuclear power. We will all die, but before that, we have to LIVE, and to live, we need to get up every day and risk our lives in doing so, we need energy and we need to do cool, interesting stuff.

So back off, please. If you need to worry and obsess over something, worry and obsess over the pointless stuff that we know kills many, like tobacco, and leave be the tremendeously useful stuff that may or may not kill a few.

I guess you can imagine what damage would be caused when a transport of nuclear material into space would meet with an accident and in sequence the transporter would fall back into the atmosphere. Maybe it would burn up and release a rain of radioactivity on high populated places. The consequences, following those "hours of terror", would be tremendous.

We should not clone the confidence (caused by religious irrationality) of the Iranian rulers in their efforts to use nuclear power.

with your comment maybe you can inspire a group of ten year old boy scouts. But take also the Tschernobyl accident into account.

Oh, please, learn some actual history and stop with the enviro-bias that already pervades this site with respect to Global Warmin…sorry, I mean Climate Change, or whatever they're calling that BS these days since the actual observations don't fit with the accepted hysteria.

The shibboleth of the Three Mile Island so-called "disaster" has been debunked outside the fevered imaginations of the Hollyweird "China Syndrome" mentality long ago. No one died, no one suffered as much as a hair falling out, not among the workers at the plant, nor among any of the citizenry downwind. The amount of radiation exposure suffered by anyone anywhere near there is vastly exceeded by the exposure that millions of commuters get simply by walking through Grand Central Station from natural radiation emanating from the granite.

But we might as well put a reactor on the moon. By that time, the entire world will be powered by nuclear energy, except for us here in the enlightened US of course, thanks to all the paranoid anti-nuke crazies we have here.

However, we will be fully powered up by the solar cells covering approx 94.73% of the land mass of the US, except of course, for that land given over to several hundred million windmills. That is, as long as we reduce our population by 90% so as to be able to fit on what land is left, and they all shift to bicycles and pushcarts to power our by then Stone Age economy.

"can't help wonder how many billions of dollars will be sucked out of an already troubled economy"

You need not wonder/worry, because you just used the wrong description of the situation.

"Another issue, how will the 'return on investment' be calculated?"

Mathematics never concerned you before. Should it now?

If you have an idea you might become real rich one day. Cities, places and streets on the moon might carry your name.

The sky will be very pretty with 20 billion pieces of the moon reflecting sunlight after the reactor explodes.

God forbid we have a reactor leak on the Moon! After all, it's only an environment bathed in a constant stream of highly energized particles. Whatever, man.

Sili: If we could make practical fusion reactors (and that's still some years off), we'd build them on Earth for use on Earth. Unlike solar energy captured in high Earth orbit, there'd be no advantage to beaming that power from a distance…

Of course – getting all that power down to Earth without the risk of frying the occasional city in the process is gonna be a challenge.