I figure that until we build one of the various nuclear-powered boost options that have been proposed, we're not going very far in the solar system. Either we get over our fear of launching OMGNuclear!!!1! stuff, or perhaps we can loft a booster and figure out a way of launching the fuel in enough smaller launches that nobody freaks out at the idea of a few dozen pounds of uranium being dropped into several quadrillion gallons of ocean, or something.
Because the numbers just don't work for chemical rockets. The already-harsh rocket equations get even worse when you have to carry along the mass to feed, water, and breath, too.
You know how sometimes you've got the best possible people, really brilliant, and all the resources, and still things go wrong? Rockets blow up for example. The fear of that happening which you see fit to mock, is justified, and no amount of self-righteous dismissiveness is going to help bridge that difference.
The thing is, even if a rocket blows up and a few dozen pounds of uranium get strewn about, it isn't anywhere near the disaster people think it is. Until we can rationally compute dangers instead of simply assigning infinities to the dangers, we're not going to get anywhere.
There is ~4.5 billion tons of uranium already in sea water [1].
If that fact surprises you, you may just have not known it. If that fact scares you or makes you want to deny it, you're probably still stuck in the irrational fear I'm talking about. The world is not a pristine place with no radioactivity in it until Man comes along and somehow, like, manufactures it from nothing but his sheer Evil for the nefarious purpose of destroying the environment, mu-hu-ha-ha-ha. It's a thing that's already out there. It's not that terrifying if we take basic precautions that, it turns out, we already take because you know what's way scarier than a few dozen pounds of uranium falling near you? A flaming exploding rocket falling on you. So we already don't launch over cities and such.
And we really won't progress as long as people can not only act irrationally about the real dangers, but think they're being more moral by being irrational about the dangers than people actually using their brains and that it's vital to yell at the people using their brains and attempt to socially pressure them into just going with the herd and assigning infinite danger to the scariness of OMGRadiation!!!1!.
Public perception has nothing to do with it. The Russians and Chinese don't care about public perception. Why aren't all their rockets using nuclear propulsion?
This is very expensive research. Nuclear propulsion is definitely going to be utilized it just isn't a budget priority right now.
I think that what you're describing is some sort of variant of the "Won't somebody please think of the children" rhetorical tool (or the fallacy "Appeal to Emotion"). I don't know what to do about it, but I can recognize it.
Yes, anything involving radiation causes fear. The reality is that the atomic bomb tests deposited tons of plutonium in the atmosphere and no one has detected any health consequences from that. I am not sure why someone would say a few dozen more pounds of plutonium would matter.
If North Korea survives another 10 or 20 years, I could see them shooting nukes up in to space.
A lot of ethically questionable scientific research might potentially be performed by so-called "rogue states" that don't feel bound by international norms.
We're seeing something like that in regards to copyright and patents, where some countries that don't respect intellectual property have no problems violating copyright and patents of countries that do.
Similarly, cloning research and human-embryo research that might be banned in some countries is being performed by others. Launching nukes it to space is another opportunity to advance for countries that have no ethical problems with that.
Because the numbers just don't work for chemical rockets. The already-harsh rocket equations get even worse when you have to carry along the mass to feed, water, and breath, too.