Tar_Alcaran
In the field of safety there is a concept called a “normal accident”, or a system accident. Basically it says that in any complex system catastrophic accidents will always happen, because they are impossible to foresee (due to complexity) and thus prevent. That theory says you need to prepare for the consequence of the accident just as much as try to prevent it.
So, people are always going to lose control, you need to prepare for when it happens.
Nuclear what?
I work in hazardous materials handling and safety (general as well as hazardous materials).
The majority of the waste isn’t high-level, and can be relatively safely disposed of. The vast majority of the high-level waste at Sellafield comes from nuclear weapons manufacturing. But thanks to amazing cold-wat era recordburningkeeping, nobody really what is what. A sealed vessel could hold harmless coveralls, or toxic sludge, and nobody knows anything other than that it’s built to literally without bombing, so it’s insanely slow going.
The actual civilian spent reactor fuel is a tiny fraction of what is at Sellafield, and it’s some of the easiest material to dispose of, since they’re packaged solids. The real headaches are the contaminated machinery and the nuclear weapon sludge.
So yes, nuclear power is safe and clean. Nuclear weapons being made at the cold in secret labs? Not so much. But Sellafield is only a problem because the Brits kept notes. The US dug holes in the desert and poured their nuclear sludge into them, then promptly forgot all about the. The Soviet Union did god knows what with their waste. The French poured it into the ocean.
In hazardous waste handling, the best waste is contained waste, and that doesn’t apply to any other fossil fuel. CO2 kills tens of million every year through global warming and many more die from dust, where nuclear energy deaths from all sources barely register.
Having a lab in orbit is SO much more scientifically useful than going to the moon again by reinventing the wheel-but-dumber. Unfortunately, it’s not nearly as useful for political clout as dropping a few more flags. If only a fraction of the insane mountain of money for Artemis was being spent on a new station, we’d have one already.