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Politics is the biggest driver of any hypothetical nuclear aircraft. Not just the politics of nuclear powerplants, but politics of regional conflict. it is not unreasonable to assume that current events could mean that the future is one of whole regions on fire and becoming no-go zones; you'd have to fly around them. A current great circle route from most of Europe to Australia/New Zealand would fly over Russia and the Middle East; it's easy to see how that could become problematic. If Africa becomes similarly troublesome to overfly, then the route gets *really* long... fly south along the length of the Atlantic, hang a left before you get to Antarctica. A normal jetliner would be SOL if it tried to fly this route, but a nuclear WIG could pull it off easily.