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From: gardiner@umn-cs.CS.UMN.EDU (David Gardiner)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Nuclear Powered Planes: Feasibility?
Message-ID: <11154@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Date: 6 Nov 89 05:03:52 GMT
References: <11113@cbnews.ATT.COM>
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Organization: CSci Dept., University of Minnesota, Mpls.
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From: gardiner@umn-cs.CS.UMN.EDU (David Gardiner)
I had a professor who worked on that project.  He stated that the
project was doomed from the beginning for the following reason.
The supporters of the nuclear plane stated that the chances of
people being harmed by radiation from one of the planes crashing was
minimal due the such a small portion of the Earth's surface being
populated.  The problem with this line of reasoning was that the 
statistical distribution of a group of airplanes' time in flight is not
uniform over the globe.  A higher percentage is over populated areas
than un-populated areas.  Furthermore, takeoffs and landings, the point
in flight where virtually all crashes occur, are always over populated
areas.  Thus WHEN one the planes crashed, it would most likely crash
into a populated area.

I am not sure whether this is the official line on why the program
was cancelled, though.

David Gardiner
U of Minnesota Computer Science Department