Well... there are hundreds of cities where people live fairly close to a reactor, with the same lethal outcome in case of failure. They live there 24/7 and you're opposed to an idea of spending at most tens of hours a year right next to one?

The biggest issue is radioactive contamination in case of an ordinary plane crash, and parachuting a reactor doesn't sound like especially convincing solution: when planes crash, it is usually because a lot of things go wrong onboard, with parachuting system possibly being one of them.

I think we'll be much better off investing into development of new generation of speed trains: they can easily be made electric (thus taking advantage of cheap nuclear energy), riding on electro-magnetic fields friction-free at crazy speeds.

"with the same lethal outcome in case of failure"

Not so, it's a lot easier to put extra safety equipment on the ground then on an airplane.

I quite agree that parachuting the reactor is not going to work - if you were flying the thing, and you had a 50% chance of saving the plane if you had a power plant, but a 100% chance of crashing if you let it drop - would you do it?

The military is trained for such choices, civilians are not.

If in the event of a plane crash I die but the reactor is safely parachuted to the ground I'm going to be pretty unhappy.