Letter to the Editor: America Should Pursue Nuclear Rocket

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Dear Mr. President: I don’t like being threatened. And I don’t like standing around afterward. I think it is time to stop pussyfooting around. Here is what I think we ought to do.

You should invite Kirk Sorensen to the White House to explain to you how his reactor works. And how Nixon killed it. When you are satisfied, ask if that reactor can power a drone submarine. One much like the LSV-2 Cutthroat. After that, ask how long it would take to build 200. A hundred for the Navy, and the rest for the strip mine behind Centralia’s power plant.

Why there? A powerline going to Seattle/Portland is overhead, and it’s a strip mine, with nothing and no one anywhere in sight. When Kirk tells you the factory has yet to be built, tell him Centralia has a road, a rail, a power plant and a 10-square-mile hole in the ground. Ask what else is needed.

In a few years and after a few billion, there is a reactor factory on American soil employing American blue and white collar people, pumping out shockingly safe reactors for sale anywhere. Even in space. But not in orbit, because things fall out of orbit, and that would be bad.

We build a fleet of drone submarines to defend us. Produce 5 gigawatts continuous green power from the strip mine. That is $1-2 billion a year, depending on wholesale. 

Sell isotopes from the burned fuel, another billion. We have a reactor to sell. More billions. And we are the contractors instead of the Chinese, every one of whom is dragooned into Chinese intelligence services since 2015.

Here is the real magic. Because the reactor is spaceworthy, America would be able to colonize other stars. The alternative is watch China do it. And once a Chinese boot lands on a neck it stays. This makes the difference, forever.



The Russians threaten to take the Earth from us. We should respond by taking the stars from them.

Thank you, Mr. President.

 

Kurtis Engle

Centralia