| US Cold War Military Spending | |
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| Topic Started: Jan 8 2011, 10:20 AM (379 Views) | |
| Simon Darkshade | Jan 8 2011, 10:20 AM Post #1 |
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Nefarious Swashbuckler
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Firstly, the 50s as percentages of GDP: US military spending in the 1950s as a percentage of GDP 1950 5.0 1951 7.4 1952 13.2 1953 14.2 1954 13.1 1955 10.8 1956 10.0 1957 10.1 1958 10.2 1959 10.0 1960 9.3 |
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| Basil Fawlty | Sep 4 2011, 03:46 AM Post #2 |
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Post Tenebras Lux
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U.S. federal funding for Cold War research and development, in millions of dollars: Total Defense (Army, Navy, Air Force, excluding military pay; also excluded is R&D financed from production and procurement funds) 1947 550.8 1948 592.2 1949 695.4 1950 652.8 1951 833.4 1952 1,317.0 1953 1,569.2 1954 1,532.2 1955 1,550.9 1956 1,628.6 1957 1,889.7 Atomic Energy Commission 1947 37.7 1948 107.5 1949 196.1 1950 221.4 1951 242.6 1952 259.6 1953 261.8 1954 274.3 1955 289.8 1956 386.1 1957 512.2 |
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| Delta Force | Jun 9 2015, 05:44 AM Post #3 |
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Unfortunately, only a few years later the Atomic Energy Commission would devote itself almost entirely to reprocessing and breeder reactors, spending tens of billions of dollars on something we know now won't be required decades from now. Uranium is just that plentiful. It meant that advanced reactor concepts such as the gas cooled reactor and molten salt reactor did not see development, and safety and economic improvements to other technologies were not pursued either. Also the AEC made a mistake early on in pursuing ever larger reactors, rather than focusing on encouraging the development of small and medium size reactors that could be acquired by more utility companies more cheaply and perhaps in standardized or even factory produced form. It could have been interesting if Alvin Weinberg had been in a position to advocate for some of his views on the MSR, uranium, and nuclear energy in general. As you can probably tell, I've been doing a lot of research on nuclear matters for a new version of my continuing Cold War timeline/setting of sorts. |
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2:39 PM Jul 11