phyxr.com

“The world will note the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a military base.”

“‘Now I am become death the destroyer of worlds.’ I suppose we all thought that one way or another”

Two very different quotes, (click on them to hear them), from those who were, and who thought themselves, responsible for the hundreds of thousands of people, mostly civilians, who were killed either directly or indirectly by the nuclear bombs America dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

To my mind Oppenheimer was not responsible.  Such technology would have been developed by others, and turned into weopons.  Truman on the other hand – well, he was responsible.  And if the killing of a single person is wrong, how can you ascribe in words a sufficient degree of wrongness to such an act as ordering nuclear weapons to be detonated over population centres.

I wonder if anyone in the entire future history of mankind will be directly responsible for so many simultaneous human deaths as happened in those two brief flashes of manmade sun fragments.

More information here.

Several projects are currently underway to create safe, sealed, portable nuclear reactors that can provide megawatts of electric power for decades without the need for refueling.

The Japanese Super Safe, Small and Simple, or 4S, is a sealed reactor designed by Toshiba that is slated to be used first in 2012 in Galena, a remote town on the Yukon river in Alaska.  It will provide 10MW for 30 years. Here is a fairly detailed report on the project.

Another is the Small Secure Transportable Autonomous Reactor, or SSTAR designed by researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in California.  It will provide 30MW for 30 years and be similarly sealed and require no refueling.  It will also be contained in a tamper-proof “flask” that will use a secure satellite link to report any attempt at interference with its operation. Here is a very detailed staus report on this project.

Persoanlly I’m still waiting for the nuclear power sources Asimov wrote about in his Foundation Trilogy all those years ago that you could wear on your belt. One of those things like the flying car that never quite made it from the promises of 60s SF into real life.