Why not nuclear power?

[Bearware]

15. I suspect there are a number of advanced prototype molten reactors being built or in operation

At https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-and-future-generation/molten-salt-reactors.aspx they mention a number of countries. Apparently there is a lot of support in China because the head of their molten salt program is the son of the previous Chinese Premier. Some years back they came to ORNL and requested copies of the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment that was shut down in 1970. We gave them the information without batting an eye.

Why? I like an analogy to the US space program. At huge cost we made it to the moon and then stopped to wait for the "reuseable" Space Shuttle. The shuttle was an advance in reuse-ability but it cost huge amounts to prepare for another flight and could only reach low earth orbit. It also had an immense bureaucracy with lots of political and corporate influence. The Apollo program lost some astronauts in a public way on the launch pad and had some close calls. The shuttle program had two very public accidents that killed their crews one of whom was a public school teacher. After the end of the Shuttle program we needed Russian assistance to get our astronauts back into orbit. We basically stopped doing human space exploration and left it to robots.

Along comes a crazy smart guy with some serious money who has a plan for space exploration that politics and bureaucracy have little control of. He goes from creating a rocket company 2002 using existing know how and successfully makes a reuseable rocket landing in 13 years. There are a fair number of start-up companies pushing various Molten Salt Reactor designs. I suspect designing and building
a prototype will be far easier than getting them certified. The newer designs incorporate huge improvements in safety over the older designs but satisfying the bureaucracy is another matter.