Cars
The idea of making atom cars powered by uranium-235 dated back to at least 1941 when Dr R M Langer, a CalTech physicist, espoused the idea in the January edition of Popular Mechanics. He was followed by William Bushnell Stout, designer of the Stout Scarab and former Society of Engineers President, on 7 August 1945 in the New York Times. By 1951 the problem of shielding the reactor had rendered the idea impractical.
In 1958 the idea resurfaced when there were a least four theoretical nuclear powered concept cars proposed, the American Ford Nucleon and Studebaker Packard Astral, as well as the French Simca Fulgur designed by Robert Opron and the Arbel Symetric. Apart from these concept models, none were built and no automotive nuclear power plants ever made. Chrysler engineer C R Lewis had discounted the idea in 1957 because of estimates that an 80,000 lb (36,000 kg) engine would be required by a 3,000 lb (1,400 kg) car. His view was that an efficient means of storing energy was required for nuclear power to be practical. Despite this, Chrysler's stylists in 1958 drew up some possible designs. Ford made another potentially nuclear powered model in 1962 for the Seattle World's Fair, the Ford Seattle-ite XXI. This also never went beyond the initial concept.
In 2009, for the hundredth anniversary of General Motors' acquisition of Cadillac, Loren Kulesus created concept art depicting a car powered by thorium.
Read more about this topic: Nuclear Propulsion
Famous quotes containing the word cars:
“When, at rare intervals, some thought visits one, as perchance he is walking on a railroad, then, indeed, the cars go by without his hearing them. But soon, by some inexorable law, our life goes by and the cars return.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The production of obscurity in Paris compares to the production of motor cars in Detroit in the great period of American industry.”
—Ernest Gellner (b. 1925)
“Billboards, billboards, drink this, eat that, use all manner of things, everyone, the best, the cheapest, the purest and most satisfying of all their available counterparts. Red lights flicker on every horizon, airplanes beware; cars flash by, more lights. Workers repair the gas main. Signs, signs, lights, lights, streets, streets.”
—Neal Cassady (1926–1968)