Archibald
Banned
I tend to think the nuclear business may be different, too.
to make a long story short: there are three fissile materials on hand
- uranium 233
- uranium 235
- plutonium 239
The raw material as found in nature is thorium-232 and uranium-238.
Because of WWII and the Manhattan project, the uranium-238 was chosen to build Little Boy (U235) and Fat Man (P239) atomic bombs.
Now the third fissile, uranium 233 - it is obtained from thorium 232, but (AFAIK) no bombs can be build from that cycle. I saw on wikipedia that this one was discovered in 1946 only.
We can still dream that, had there been no WWII and no Manhattan project, the thorium cycle may have been chosen first... who knows.
As for the space race, no WWII already results in a different Kennedy hierarchy, perhaps with Joe president in 1952 or 1956. No JFK in 1960, no soviet threat - no impetus for Apollo... and God know what happens to Wernher von Braun.
On the other hand, no atomic bomb first means no ICBM, and that's not a bad thing, since they were all for performance and little for cost savings. Purpose-build civilian rockets can't be that bad.
to make a long story short: there are three fissile materials on hand
- uranium 233
- uranium 235
- plutonium 239
The raw material as found in nature is thorium-232 and uranium-238.
Because of WWII and the Manhattan project, the uranium-238 was chosen to build Little Boy (U235) and Fat Man (P239) atomic bombs.
Now the third fissile, uranium 233 - it is obtained from thorium 232, but (AFAIK) no bombs can be build from that cycle. I saw on wikipedia that this one was discovered in 1946 only.
We can still dream that, had there been no WWII and no Manhattan project, the thorium cycle may have been chosen first... who knows.
As for the space race, no WWII already results in a different Kennedy hierarchy, perhaps with Joe president in 1952 or 1956. No JFK in 1960, no soviet threat - no impetus for Apollo... and God know what happens to Wernher von Braun.
On the other hand, no atomic bomb first means no ICBM, and that's not a bad thing, since they were all for performance and little for cost savings. Purpose-build civilian rockets can't be that bad.