Posts by Tom Walden

Nobel-winning boffin slams ISS, manned spaceflight

Spinoffs

Manned spaceflight may be more expensive, but it produces far more spinoffs.

For example, computers are based on integrated circuits. And the first major use of them was on the Guidance Computer for the Apollo Command Module.

Fancy a nuclear power station in your backyard?

Harwell

I doubt that they will build on the actual Harwell site, since:

1. the site is quite a long way from the main railway line (to get fuel to Sellafield) and the Thames (for cooling water).

2. they're already building a business park on it

However, Didcot A, a coal-fired plant to the north, is due to be shut down in a few years and is close to both the railway and the thames, so a new nuclear plant could be built on it.