Quote Originally Posted by Ramil
Why not use nuclear power? It's clean (unless you deliberately blow a nuclear reactor). It's cheap and it's available. After all, the only drawback is peoples' fear of radiation.
Well, you can't install a nuclear reactor on board the plane, so I assume you don't dispute the usefulness of hydrogen as an energy carrier.

So, I agree that fission can produce a lot of energy (as well as some radioactive waste). As to the safety of operation, we don't know yet whether or not the fusion plant will be safer to operate than the fission plant.

The fusion, however, is the ultimate source of power in the observable universe as we know it. And it produces many-folds more power than the fission. So, that's the inevitable direction of development as it will allow the humanity to exploit the resources of the Solar system and go beyond the Level I civilization.