atomic Prius?

Been done. Bigger than your neighborhood, goes something over 30 knots:

Plutonium pack, like on Voyager satellites. Small, efficient. A plutonium pack in every garage.

r snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com wrote in news:b1d2fc12-1701-457e-b2d3-a0160b1e6ba1 @googlegroups.com:

"Nucular"? Get thee hence to a dictionary,

Of course, dirty bombs and cancer would become a daily fact of life but it's a small price to pay for small and efficient. I don't think it will do much for air quality though. :-)

Obsolete - this goes over 2,000 knots while skimming the waves.

Ask the French how their heavily armored and mounted knights fared at Agincourt, or the IDF how their Merkava tanks did in the wadis of southern Lebanon?

to your prior point, the french have moved on - in terms of their naval power at least - they have exocet. which proved somewhat effective in the falklands war. it's been sold widely since.

Exocet ? Ford Pinto [1] Yakhont ? Ford GT

The Exocet is subsonic, and easily defeated by such systems as the Raytheon Phalanx. There is no proven defense against the Yakhont, particularly when fired in a group. Which is why if Israel (or Israel's proxy, the US) attacks Syria or Iran [2], you will see the US Navy leaving the Persian Gulf and heading well out into the Indian Ocean beforehand.

[1] Today is the 43rd anniversary of the Ford Pinto. [2] In a major assault, not the smaller attacks that have been ongoing.

Thermoelectric packs are very good for giving a small amount of current for a long time period. When I was a kid, the Westinghouse Home of the Future had one in the backyard, and the Soviets used a lot of them on buoys that needed to stay afloat for a long time.

The problem is they aren't at all useful for an application that needs high peak power and relatively low average power. That's why the Ford Nucleon was going to use twin turbines, connected to generators, more or less like a nuclear version of the Prius.

I believe there is a Wikipedia entry for the Nucleon.

--scott

Google,,, Atomic engine Airplane

ffg-31?

Interesting! Thanks Scott.

I dunno, if they can package it as a child's toy, figure Toyota can handle the safety trquirements -

Perhaps we should exercise some caution...

Only if you ignore the emissions from uranium mining, uranium ore refining, uranium enrichment, fuel rod transport, etc.

Like this:

I like this one better...

bob