Launch cost was already a single digit percentage of total cost when using Falcon-9s. Reduction in launch cost doesn't really change anything at that point.
Ignoring that weaponizing space would backfire badly (you want hundreds of nukes in orbit? yeah actually let's just not do that) and thus no one considering it either.
If you think about that, a lot of fuel for in-space nuclear reactors will already have been launched, so, if a new peace treaty outlaws them, it'll be a boon to whoever operates fission reactors in space. Or wants to use them for propulsion.
Once in space, they can't be disposed of - deorbiting is a big no-no, as it's blowing them up.
If one is using a nuclear reactor for long term power or propulsion you shouldn't need to be disposing of it in the Earth's vicinity anyways - there is plenty of solar in Earth orbit. Not that peace treaties around nukes will inherently ban reactors.
If the nuke is already in orbit, harvesting it for fissile fuel seems like a sensible way of decommissioning it. They you can power your NTR (or RTG if you must) from its fuel. It'll require some in-orbit metallurgy work, to get it in the proper shape and composition.
Ah you haven’t read the latest reports. We’re losing fresh water at a rate faster than models had anticipated. Once it joins the ocean, it takes a painfully long time to build up on land again. And with rising temperatures it’s not being retained on land as much.
> Norway experienced the largest deterioration in peacefulness in
the region, which was primarily caused by a substantial
deterioration on the Militarisation domain. The military
expenditure (% GDP) indicator deteriorated by 31.1 per cent and
the weapons exports indicator deteriorated by 145 per cent. In
2024, the government unanimously adopted a new long-term
defence strategy that will substantially increase the total
defence budget over the next 12 years.15 The Safety and Security
domain saw a slight improvement of 0.08 per cent while all the
indicators in the Ongoing Conflict domain had no change.
Despite its fall in overall peacefulness, Norway has the second
most peaceful ranking in the world on the Safety and Security
domain.
Enriching uranium to 20% instead of 5% is easy. If reactors require it, the fuel will be found just fine. You already have hundreds of SMRs in submarines and aircraft carriers and what not. A1B reactors in your carriers run on 93% enriched uranium!
That really isn't the bottleneck by any means. If there's demand there will be supply.
Isn't that more likely to be some kind of training mission for a junior agent? (make it personal, not totally clean and get away with it anyway?)
When they just want to make sure to kill someone, dumping a few magazines into the body and driving over it afterwards for good measure, like that ex-pilot in Spain, appears to do the trick just fine.
Price/TB is nearly identical for ancient SATA and new "high-end" PCIe 4 M.2 SSDs. The cost is EVERYTHING except the controller and the PCB. Which would be the memory, shockingly.
Do you think they have a yield problem? The price on chips usually drops when the production tech matures. I could believe the fab lines are running smoking hot, but surely by now lower density fab in all kinds of economies could be making this tech.
Ignoring that weaponizing space would backfire badly (you want hundreds of nukes in orbit? yeah actually let's just not do that) and thus no one considering it either.