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A comment on Out of all major energy sources, nuclear is the safest. Parent comment

Re:Out of all major energy sources, nuclear is the safest by toomanybeersies on Monday July 31, 2017 @09:31PM (#14897258)
A nuclear power plant has a lifetime of over 50 years, so it pays to make sure you're doing it right.

It's like complaining that space probes and satellites use outdated processors and other computer technology. The Deep Space Climate Observatory was launched in 2015 with a 17 year old processor.

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Re:Out of all major energy sources, nuclear is the safest by godelski on Tuesday August 01, 2017 @03:40PM (#14904561)
And now you're seeing a shift to smaller satellites with shorter operation lifetimes, and in lower orbits. This allows for use of off the shelf hardware and faster iteration. The barrier for this was brought down because it is cheaper to send hardware to space and the idea of a cluster of small sats isn't crazy anymore (because you need many satellites to provide continuous service to a specific ground location when using LEO).
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