Clean car of the past: The Ford Nucleon

Holy crap! You think the Ford Explorer is an environmental disaster, check out this concept from the '50s: Ford Nucleon. That's right, it's a nuclear-powered car. The nuclear core is in the back, with a fancy metal plate covering it.

The Nucleon's passenger cabin was designed to be pushed far forward, to protect the drivers from the nuclear material in the event of a fender bender. Of course, in a real high-speed crash, the placement of the passenger cabin wouldn't matter much...unless you could get it several city blocks away.

It's good to keep an eye on visions from the past so we can keep our own visions for the future in check. Yes, nuclear power enabled us to do some amazing things, but problems in safety kept it from realizing the potential that the world envisioned for it in the late '50s.

There are real, insurmountable problems that halt the progress of some technologies...or at least, they halt the progress of technologies toward the trunk of your car.

Via Improbable Research