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Per Aspera (Space Agency Plan Quest)

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Here's a much more subdued alternate to Yibambe that only does spy launches and makes no request and takes no grads. Grows our PS to 75 by sweeping up some promises we were gonna make anyway.

[ ] Plan: Eye In The Sky

-[ ] Conduct 4 Spy Rocket Launches in North America (+5 PS, Int(D) moves 2d5 steps towards Favor, SDL moves 2d5 steps towards Oppose) (Military)
-[ ] Conduct 4 Spy Rocket Launches (+5 PS, UWF moves 2d5 steps towards Favor, SDL moves 2d5 steps towards Oppose)
-[ ] Only produce military items in colonized nations (+5 PS, CPAL moves 2d5 steps towards Favor) (overrides Steps if otherwise indicated by other options) (Military)

These have the same requirements, so it makes sense to double dip on them. They can also be done basically immediately in place of our regular sounding rocket launches. We also have 2 ops dice, so we can do these launches without setting our regular launches too far back.

The Spy Rockets are all gonna be built in Africa anyways, so it's a natural thing to take.

-[ ] Conduct Materials Research (Phase 3) (+5 PS, Int(C) moves 1d10 steps towards Favor)

This is the only really pressing project in the Science section, so it makes sense to just take it.

-[X] Establish the Advanced Concepts Office (+5 PS, Int(C) moves 2d5 steps towards Favor)

This +5 PS is nice for offsetting one of the -5PS dings per dice that construction will take, and getting this ASAP will be good for getting in on the ground floor of rocket reuse, which is absolutely critical long term. Actually the GM has said that a LOT of stuff is gated behind this, so I think it's worth taking now.

The orbital rocket research is going apace, and we have more than enough slack in that timeline to accommodate this. The whole reason we even started that project so early was to have something to spend our dice on while no other more pressing projects existed in Engineering.

-[X] Complete Rocket Reels (+5 PS) (Int(M-L) moves 1d5 steps towards Favor)

An easy ask, since we don't have a lot to occupy us in the Politics section right now and we were going to do this anyways.

-[X] Do not pursue Spaceplane research (+5 PS, SDL moves 2d10 steps towards Favor)

Easy thing to promise. I'll reiterate that I view jets as a bit of a dead end right now. We can revisit them later when we have to do lots of super and hypersonic experiments.

-[X] Do not expand to more than 3 Facilities Dice (+5PS, CPAL moves 2d5 steps towards Favor)

Three dice will be enough to service all our needs for now. We're just not that hard up for facilities given the goals we're shooting for.

Starting PS: 40

ΔPS from Promises: +40
ΔR from Promises: 0

Int(M-L): 0/458/400/0 + 1d5
Int(D): 0/250/200/0 + 2d5
Int(C): 0/800/250/0 + 1d10 + 2d5
UWF: 5/300/50/20 + 2d5
FWW: 20/377/300/0
SDL: 0/412/400/13 - 2d5 - 2d5 + 2d10
CPAL: 11/414/200/0 + 2d5
Minor: 5/20/32/43

-[ ] [FUND] 0.75% (-5PS)

Assuming an average dice spread as follows:

2 ops x 15R*
2 facilities x 15R
3 engineering x 15R
3 science x15R
3 politics x5R

Per Turn Dice Cost: 165 R

Maintaining our current funding should be good enough.

New PS: 75
 
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Holy shit that news out of North America is extremely not good. Where are these "free states" even finding people willing to run their infrastrucutre... well, I guess they're probably not willing people.

Anyways I'll read through the plans people made more later if I have time, but I strongly oppose outright militarization. Give plans for our rockets to the rest of the world's weapons bureaus? Most certainly. But we are the science and outreach team. We have many jobs but militarization is not one of them. The WCC can use its own budget for that. I don't want them to get used to outsourcing part of the reactionary-crushing job to us.

EDIT: Well, I guess I can tolerates us doing some spy rocket launches, since we already control all the production and infra chain for that anyways. But just how useful are spy rockets with early 50s tech anyway?
 
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General_Urist said:
Holy shit that news out of North America is extremely not good. Where are these "free states" even finding people willing to run their infrastrucutre... well, I guess they're probably not willing people.

Anyways I'll read through the plans people made more later if I have time, but I strongly oppose outright militarization. Give plans for our rockets to the rest of the world's weapons bureaus? Most certainly. But we are the science and outreach team. We have many jobs but militarization is not one of them. The WCC can use its own budget for that. I don't want them to get used to outsourcing part of the reactionary-crushing job to us.

EDIT: Well, I guess I can tolerates us doing some spy rocket launches, since we already control all the production and infra chain for that anyways. But just how useful are spy rockets with early 50s tech anyway?
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Mildly to moderately. It's cheaper to use a plane, but a rocket can't get shot down.
 
CyberEnby said:
[ ] Plan: Yibambe!


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIA3hSfIrao

AKA: The African Freedom Arsenal
AKA: Fuck the SDL in particular

This plan focuses on helping with the Partisan conflict in NorAm while building up the means of production in Africa, with an eye on essentially using the military necessity to pay for a bunch of infrastructure we can use after the war, while not overstraining our ability to deliver on our promises.


These have the same requirements, so it makes sense to double dip on them. They can also be done basically immediately in place of our regular sounding rocket launches. By expanding our Ops dice (see below) we can also generate enough slack to account for failed launches and do these launches without sacrificing our heavy sounding rocket launches.



Ok, so this is the meat and potatoes of this plan. Basically we build a Stormchaser factory while researching the militarized Beden, then build a factory for that.
Honestly the HSR launch pad is the only pressing thing we want to finish that affects our primary mission right now in the Facilities section. Things like the wind tunnel are a nice to have, not a must have.
The Stormchaser factory also gets us a free Ops dice, so we can then do both the Spy Launches, and our HSR launches at the same time.

Also, consider what this gets us. Military rockets have to be launched in great numbers, so this is basically rocket mass production research and infrastructure for us, wich is the #1 easiest way to make cheaper rockets. And we get to throw these rockets into harsh conditions which will reveal all sorts of failure modes and ways we can improve them!
AND when the war is over, who do you think is going to sweep in and acquire all that juicy rocket manufacturing infrastructure? (It's gonna be us.)

Now, at 300 points a pop, 3 dice x 4 turns only gets us 50/50 odds of completion. So we're going to have to pump up our facilities dice to generate extra slack and allow us to finish our HSR pad. More on that below.



This is the only really pressing project in the Science section, so it makes sense to just take it. And this is only a Phase 3, so we're unlikely to be burned by bad rolls like we were with Rocket Boxes.



An easy ask, since we don't have a lot to occupy us in the Politics section right now and we were going to do this anyways.



This +5 PS is nice for offsetting one of the -5PS dings per dice that construction will take, and getting this ASAP will be good for getting in on the ground floor of rocket reuse, which is absolutely critical long term. Actually the GM has said that a LOT of stuff is gated behind this, so I think it's worth taking now.
The orbital rocket research is going apace, and we have more than enough slack in that timeline to accommodate this. The whole reason we even started that project so early was to have something to spend our dice on while no other more pressing projects existed in Engineering.





Starting PS: 40
ΔPS from Promises: +65
ΔR from Promises: 0

Int(M-L): 0/458/400/0 + 1d5
Int(D): 0/250/200/0 + 2d5 + 2d5 + 6d10 + 6d10
Int(C): 0/800/250/0 + 1d10 + 2d5
UWF: 5/300/50/20 + 2d5 + 2d5 + 6d10 + 6d10
FWW: 20/377/300/0 + 2d5
SDL: 0/412/400/13 - 2d5 - 2d5 - 6d10 - 6d10 + 2d10
CPAL: 11/414/200/0 + 2d5
Minor: 5/20/32/43

Requests
-[ ] Masters of the Craft - When you say they need experience, you'd prefer it if they had, like, a lot of experience. The cream of the crop. The absolute best workers in the world. (+1 Facilities Dice, +10 to Facilities dice, -15 PS, -15R/turn)

We've got a lot of Facility work to do this turn so grabbing the highest bonus pays extra dividends.

-[ ] Redirect Funding to Africa - The homeland of the IEC is ever in need of further investment, industrialization and modernization. The stench of centuries of imperialist exploitation can only be washed away with the wealth that was stripped from it being returned. (Adds extra rolls per turn for Stat increases)
--[ ] Security (-5 PS)
--[ ] Infrastructure (-5 PS)
--[ ] Electrification (-5 PS)

We're going to have to beef up infrastructure to move material around (like better docks at Mogadishu for shipping the rockets up the Gulf of Aden and through the Suez and across the Atlantic).
Electrification will help with actually powering the rocket factories.
And security to make sure that material won't go missing. We're already going to bump up security by one from building two rocket factories, so I figure more dice rolls here will be enough to bump it up so that it's equal to the Partisan value.

ΔPS from Requests: -30
ΔR from Requests: -15

Graduates
Each Graduate pick adds 1 dice to the sector you picked. You have a maximum of 4 picks this year. Picking fewer Graduates than are available will add additional background rolls per quarter to increase the world's stats, such as Industry or Electrification. E.g., taking 1 fewer dice adds 1 additional roll per quarter for stats.

Each can be picked up to two times. Each pick comes with a cost of -5R/turn.



Two more dice in facilities for a total of 5 in order to be sure that we have enough slack to fulfill all our promises without delaying our space program.

ΔPS from Graduates: -10
ΔR from Graduates: -10

-[ ] [FUND] 1% - A whole percent of the budget would certainly see your capabilities grow, especially now that you are looking to build Facilities around the globe. It would be something of an ask, however, given the relatively limited nature of your accomplishments this last year.. (+65R/turn, -15PS)
-[ ] Redirect Funding to the IEC - By pulling on the right strings, you can get funding redirected to the IEC beyond the percentage allotment.
--[ ] 2 PS for 10R/turn (1PS=5R/turn)

Assuming an average dice spread as follows:

2 ops x 15R*
5 facilities x 15R
3 engineering x 15R
3 science x15R
3 politics x5R

*(We have 3 ops dice, but we can afford to let one lie fallow or spin it up as needed, we have a 75 R buffer to insulate us from the extra expenditure)

ΔR Per Turn (Dice): -210
ΔR Per Turn (Expenses): -25 (Grads and Masters of Their Craft)
Current R Income: +160
Need: 75 Income (65 from 1.5% Budge, 10 from Extra Funding)

New PS: 48
New Net R Income / Turn: 210
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I think this is good overall - building a rocket industry, grappling with small-scale cameras and control systems, and an external pool of professionals will all be really valuable, and while I do think the infantry rocket thing would be not what we want to associate with our Rocket Boxes program, the spy rockets don't seem like as much of an issue. On one hand we do become a divisive issue, on the other hand the SDL not being associated with our future successes may help the forces we like more.

There are a few things I'd change though - for one thing, that's 1200 average progress in Facilities, and you only commit to 600 progress worth of factories. Sure, we could build more than one of either but for a moderate number of 2-ton rockets, one factory should be plenty. ~600 progress into our other facilities seems out of balance with the rest of our program. So we could change one of those graduates for another category - Science has been consistently short - while still leaving plenty of dice for the wind tunnel, HSR launchpad and (unless we're really unlucky) something further.

Alternately, five dice at such a high bonus is probably enough to commit to a research facility in Ukraine if we want to lay the groundwork for lots of science dice and make the Int-ML and Korolev happy.

Also, our income at 1% is 260 (0.75% went up from 160 to 195), so we can easily drop the Extra Funding and potentially take a third Graduate. It would be reasonable to I think, since we're also putting back into development and the war effort.
 
I'm in favor of CyberEnby's "eye in the sky" plan. It has us contribute to the war effort against Zombie Robert E Lee in the way that best uses our specialties, without tainting our image with things that intentionally kill people. And it's not super-ambitious so it leaves us a good amount of general flexibility.

C_Z said:
Now I'm not saying we should build a nuclear research facility in Ukraine, but I'm not saying we shouldn't, either.
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I get what you're at. But developing semi-practical nuclear power suitable for mass production takes a long time, and that's without the supply chain having the stigma of tragic thermonuclear fire. By the time we've got anything ready for a true rollout, the coal-fired (or gas-fired if we're real lucky) electrification of Europe will be solidly completed.

As fun as it would be to set up cutting-edge facilities on a tributary of the Dniepr, building them in Sub-Sahara will be better. The continent overall is so underdeveloped that by the time we've got a serious power reactor, electrification will still be going on. We've even got Uranium mines in whatever political entity is running Katanga, though given how the euros tended to run things it may be difficult to find willing workers.

(Actually @Shadows How Badly was Ukraine damaged by the Third Great War or the government of TTL's USSR?)
 
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General_Urist said:
I get what you're at. But developing semi-practical nuclear power suitable for mass production takes a long time, and that's without the supply chain having the stigma of tragic thermonuclear fire. By the time we've got anything ready for a true rollout, the coal-fired (or gas-fired if we're real lucky) electrification of Europe will be solidly completed.
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Yeah, I stopped short of suggesting it even if it's funny. Five years from now, sure - I want to develop reactors for powering satellites, but that's long-term.

Anyways, after listening to some discussion on discord last night and sleeping on it, I've edited around and cut down my plan:

[ ] Plan: A Rapid Launch Tempo
-[ ] [FUND] 1%

Ops:
-[ ] Conduct 4 Spy Rocket Launches in North America (+5 PS, Int(D) moves 2d5 steps towards Favor, SDL moves 2d5 steps towards Oppose) (Military)
-[ ] Conduct 4 Spy Rocket Launches (+5 PS, UWF moves 2d5 steps towards Favor, SDL moves 2d5 steps towards Oppose)

Facilities:
-[ ] Build a scientific facility in Eastern Europe by Q4 1954 (+5PS) (Int(M-L) moves 2d5 steps towards Favor)
-[ ] Only produce military items in colonized nations (+5 PS, CPAL moves 2d5 steps towards Favor) (overrides Steps if otherwise indicated by other options) (Military)

-[ ] Employ 10 dice worth of Facilities and Operations personnel by 1954Q1 (+5 PS, FWW moves 2d5 steps towards Favor per project completion)

Engineering:
-[ ] Establish the Advanced Concepts Office (+5 PS, Int(C) moves 2d5 steps towards Favor)

Science:
-[ ] Conduct Materials Research (Phase 3) (+5 PS, FWW moves 2d10 steps towards Favor)

Political:
-[ ] Complete Rocket Reels (+5 PS) (Int(M-L) moves 1d5 steps towards Favor)

-[ ] Share the schematics for the Stormchaser with the UWF (+5PS, Int(D) and UWF move 3d10 towards Favor, CPAL moves 2d10 Oppose and SDL moves 4d10 towards Oppose)
-[ ] Share the schematics for the R-1 Beden with the UWF (+5 PS, Int(D) and UWF move 3d10 towards Favor, CPAL moves 2d10 Oppose and SDL moves 4d10 towards Oppose)
-[ ] Do not pursue Spaceplane research (+5 PS, SDL moves 2d10 steps towards Favor)

-[ ] [GRAD] Facilities

This plan is focused on a mix of launching those spy rockets this year, and building up for a large expansion in our dice pools next year (ideally to 6 in each category for optimization reasons - apparently there'll be penalties to putting more than 3 dice towards any one project). The science facility gives us more science dice, and with two years to complete the promise, it's not a huge rush to get it done now. If we build up our ops infrastructure this year, we'll have free facilities dice to put towards it next year. Likewise, the ACO unlocks a similar route to expand our engineering dice pool.

We're currently at 2 operations dice and 2 facilities dice. Operations dice come from building launch pads and the like, and in 1953, we probably want to complete a HSR pad, a runway, and possibly either a larger pad sized for the orbital rocket or the Assembly Complex (which is seemingly suggested). That brings us up to 7 dice. Given that Rocket Boxes 3 is almost done and we currently have a lot of bonuses to politics, expanding our Facilities dice through more union halls will be a very minor investment in dice; we just need spare PS to burn. Activating 10 dice will be a fairly large resource drain, but once we get things like rocket reels, being able to maintain a rapid launch tempo will have good returns (and allow us to do spy rocket launches as well as weather science and test launches at the same time - the +PS from doing spy launches will offset an increase in budget in '54). Once we start doing orbital launches, we also will likely need facilities and ops dice to support the increasing costs, so future-proofing for what we may need in the latter half of the '50s now is good.

We have a 99% chance of achieving MR3 within the year based on our current dice, and it's something we'll want to do anyways if we're looking to the future. Our current orbital rocket is good, but we'll probably want one within the decade that can launch heavier satellites, manned capsules, and the like (as well as possibly having some fun concepts like recoverable engine pods). Materials Research dramatically improves the capability of our rockets and there's not a lot of competition for our science dice unless we're branching out into ground-based astronomy right away.

We have few demands on our politics dice and strong bonuses to them. 5 PS is 5 PS. Rocket reels is a smart choice. Likewise, sharing the schematics presumably doesn't cost us anything, and who cares if the SDL doesn't like us?

According to discord, Spaceplane research doesn't gate building a runway and a hangar, only the actual research bit. We can still pursue PLANE, but given how we want to do an orbital rocket this year, waiting one year for the spaceplane research itself isn't a huge sacrifice.

I'm not taking any requests because they're worse than the Union Halls. Power in a Union is -5 PS, -5R, +1 facilities die, +5 bonus. Experienced Hands gives us the same rewards, but costs 10 PS and 10 resources. More Union Tradesfolk takes them away from elsewhere and they disappear after the year is over; [GRAD] Facilities has the same effect permanently without costing PS.

EDIT: Changed to 1% funding to build up a budget surplus in preparation for next year.
 
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Sharing our blueprints with the UWF also makes the CPAL somewhat annoyed with us, to be fair. But I think it's worth it. And more importantly, why ever not share the blueprints of our rockets and launchers with the wider world? Sure, it doesn't look best when they get used for blowing up people. But we are supposed to be working for the public good of the workers of the world, not play at being some secret government agency! It is entirely appropriate that in the spirit of international solidarity and cooperation, we share our engineering achievements with all the parties of the WCC, I say.
 
Potato Anarchy said:
I believe that CPAL annoyance gets canceled out if we take the "only develop military tech in the postcolonial world" option.
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Which we auto-succeed if we don't open armaments factories and keep our rocket production where it is currently, so it's an easy success.

Hell, we should start a program of making all our technical data freely available as soon as the FAS is gone (and thus we don't have to worry about someone repurposing our rockets into SAMs).
 
[X] Plan: A Rapid Launch Tempo

Making ourselves useful without excessive militarization, and has a plan for the future rather than mere momentary optimization. I like it.
 
After doing a bit more math and looking at how the last session worked (it seems like we got our PS from promises right away; I thought we got them at the end of the year) I'm thinking it might be smart to change A Rapid Launch Tempo to use 1% funding. It'd give us a bit more money to throw around this year (we'd be cutting things close with just 195R/turn when you factor in the constant bleed from Power in a Union), and we could save up a nest egg for our orbital shot in 1954. It's also not like we're running short on PS with the plan; we'd still come out of the year with 55 PS.
 
C_Z said:
Yeah, I stopped short of suggesting it even if it's funny. Five years from now, sure - I want to develop reactors for powering satellites, but that's long-term.

Anyways, after listening to some discussion on discord last night and sleeping on it, I've edited around and cut down my plan:

[ ] Plan: A Rapid Launch Tempo
-[ ] [FUND] 1%

Ops:
-[ ] Conduct 4 Spy Rocket Launches in North America (+5 PS, Int(D) moves 2d5 steps towards Favor, SDL moves 2d5 steps towards Oppose) (Military)
-[ ] Conduct 4 Spy Rocket Launches (+5 PS, UWF moves 2d5 steps towards Favor, SDL moves 2d5 steps towards Oppose)

Facilities:
-[ ] Build a scientific facility in Eastern Europe by Q4 1954 (+5PS) (Int(M-L) moves 2d5 steps towards Favor)
-[ ] Only produce military items in colonized nations (+5 PS, CPAL moves 2d5 steps towards Favor) (overrides Steps if otherwise indicated by other options) (Military)

-[ ] Employ 10 dice worth of Facilities and Operations personnel by 1954Q1 (+5 PS, FWW moves 2d5 steps towards Favor per project completion)

Engineering:
-[ ] Establish the Advanced Concepts Office (+5 PS, Int(C) moves 2d5 steps towards Favor)

Science:
-[ ] Conduct Materials Research (Phase 3) (+5 PS, FWW moves 2d10 steps towards Favor)

Political:
-[ ] Complete Rocket Reels (+5 PS) (Int(M-L) moves 1d5 steps towards Favor)

-[ ] Share the schematics for the Stormchaser with the UWF (+5PS, Int(D) and UWF move 3d10 towards Favor, CPAL moves 2d10 Oppose and SDL moves 4d10 towards Oppose)
-[ ] Share the schematics for the R-1 Beden with the UWF (+5 PS, Int(D) and UWF move 3d10 towards Favor, CPAL moves 2d10 Oppose and SDL moves 4d10 towards Oppose)
-[ ] Do not pursue Spaceplane research (+5 PS, SDL moves 2d10 steps towards Favor)

-[ ] [GRAD] Facilities

This plan is focused on a mix of launching those spy rockets this year, and building up for a large expansion in our dice pools next year (ideally to 6 in each category for optimization reasons - apparently there'll be penalties to putting more than 3 dice towards any one project). The science facility gives us more science dice, and with two years to complete the promise, it's not a huge rush to get it done now. If we build up our ops infrastructure this year, we'll have free facilities dice to put towards it next year. Likewise, the ACO unlocks a similar route to expand our engineering dice pool.

We're currently at 2 operations dice and 2 facilities dice. Operations dice come from building launch pads and the like, and in 1953, we probably want to complete a HSR pad, a runway, and possibly either a larger pad sized for the orbital rocket or the Assembly Complex (which is seemingly suggested). That brings us up to 7 dice. Given that Rocket Boxes 3 is almost done and we currently have a lot of bonuses to politics, expanding our Facilities dice through more union halls will be a very minor investment in dice; we just need spare PS to burn. Activating 10 dice will be a fairly large resource drain, but once we get things like rocket reels, being able to maintain a rapid launch tempo will have good returns (and allow us to do spy rocket launches as well as weather science and test launches at the same time - the +PS from doing spy launches will offset an increase in budget in '54). Once we start doing orbital launches, we also will likely need facilities and ops dice to support the increasing costs, so future-proofing for what we may need in the latter half of the '50s now is good.

We have a 99% chance of achieving MR3 within the year based on our current dice, and it's something we'll want to do anyways if we're looking to the future. Our current orbital rocket is good, but we'll probably want one within the decade that can launch heavier satellites, manned capsules, and the like (as well as possibly having some fun concepts like recoverable engine pods). Materials Research dramatically improves the capability of our rockets and there's not a lot of competition for our science dice unless we're branching out into ground-based astronomy right away.

We have few demands on our politics dice and strong bonuses to them. 5 PS is 5 PS. Rocket reels is a smart choice. Likewise, sharing the schematics presumably doesn't cost us anything, and who cares if the SDL doesn't like us?

According to discord, Spaceplane research doesn't gate building a runway and a hangar, only the actual research bit. We can still pursue PLANE, but given how we want to do an orbital rocket this year, waiting one year for the spaceplane research itself isn't a huge sacrifice.

I'm not taking any requests because they're worse than the Union Halls. Power in a Union is -5 PS, -5R, +1 facilities die, +5 bonus. Experienced Hands gives us the same rewards, but costs 10 PS and 10 resources. More Union Tradesfolk takes them away from elsewhere and they disappear after the year is over; [GRAD] Facilities has the same effect permanently without costing PS.

EDIT: Changed to 1% funding to build up a budget surplus in preparation for next year.
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Do you have confirmation that the Facilities requests go away afer a year and that building no military equipment counts as building it only in former colonies? Both seem ambiguous.
 
Dessard said:
Do you have confirmation that the Facilities requests go away afer a year and that building no military equipment counts as building it only in former colonies? Both seem ambiguous.
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Charlie_Zulu — Yesterday at 16:50 Hey Shadows, how long does the cost/bonus of the Requsts last for?
If we take Masters of their Craft, for example, is it permanent?

Shadows — Yesterday at 16:54 It lasts til next Council session

As for military equipment, it could be ambiguous, but since it seemed to be mutually exclusive with something that grouped our launches in with military actions, I took it to mean that building spy rockets in Mogadishu then shipping them to the US counted as building military equipment. Good call on clarifying that, though; @Shadows, would it count?
 
If you're only making spy rockets out of Mogadishu, yes.
 
Possible thoughts on our future nuclear program: We're already giving rockets to middle schoolers, why not give nuclear reactors to high schoolers? It sounds a little out-there, but:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81YJZoE997U
Edward Teller had the idea to design a nuclear reactor that was physically impossible to melt down no matter how much it was mismanaged, and would be safe enough for "high school children". Idea was to make nuclear reactors much more accessible for scientists, without risking any bad incidents as some early nuclear research had scene. They had some success OTL, but didn't become super-widespread.

The TRIGA reactor is shit for generating power, but it is excellent as a source of radiation for scientific research. Which we'd be doing a lot of. And with the 3rd Great War belligerent having nuclear programs that were wild rodeos of bad ideas that killed people even before the part where they used them to make a-bombs. So we will have immense pressure to make our reactor designs idiot proof, I can imagine a TRIGA-like design being the first one we build. And if we manage to get the public to trust us, we might get contracted to build them at universities. Make sure no student is more than however-many kilometers from a research reactor, or something. In OTL the youngest people to use them are undergrads after a long training course, but after our liberalism with Rocket Boxes we just might fulfill Eddy's vision of high school students getting occasional field trips to the regional uni to test-drive one.

If the Empire lobbing V2 rockets at everyone in terror bombing didn't scare people out of giving out science rockets, we can probably overcome the nuclear stigma and give everyone science reactors
 
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