If it was just Americans who risked being bathed in a plutonium shower when one of the NASA mad scientists' rockets blows up or their nuclear powered satellite or probe makes an unplanned reentry, I would say, no skin of my ass, but I have to confess I do resent that the rest of the world is being forced to assume the risk with no say in the matter.
Making too little of plutonium load
By KARL GROSSMAN
Special to The News-Journal
Editor's note:
Grossman, professor of journalism at the State University of New York/College at Old Westbury, is author of "The Wrong Stuff: The Space Program's Nuclear Threat To Our Planet."<snip>
The plutonium could spread far and wide -- up to 62 miles from the launch site at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, according to the NASA impact statement.
"Should a release of radioactive material occur in the launch area," states the impact statement, "the state of Florida, Brevard County and local governments would determine an appropriate course of action for any off-site plans -- such as sheltering in place, evacuation, exclusion of people from contaminated land areas, or no action required."
You think Hurricane Wilma was a problem.
And if this storm is radioactive, it wouldn't be a matter of people with chain saws, roofers and carpenters cleaning up the mess. The impact statement says the cost to decontaminate land on which the plutonium falls would range from "about $241 million to $1.3 billion per square mile."
As to the death toll, NASA projects that the dispersed plutonium could result in 100 people dying from cancer.
This is regarded as "totally ridiculous" by Dr. Ernest Sternglass, professor emeritus of radiological physics at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.
Plutonium is considered the most lethal radioactive substance because a millionth of a gram of plutonium dust lodged in the lung can be a fatal dose. "The problem is that it takes just a tiny amount of plutonium to cause cancer," says Dr. Sternglass.
http://tinyurl.com/7vjkgAre you concerned about the dangers of lead, dioxin, mercury, and the other thousands of toxic substances being unleashed into the environment? Well, you can stop worrying about those. Read on.
In 1997 NASA plans to launch the Cassini space probe. The fuel they have chosen for this deep space probe is plutonium 238.
Plutonium 238 is the veritable king kong of toxic substances. It is so lethal, scientists to this day remain unable to determine the minimum lethal dose.
In her book Nuclear Madness Dr. Helen Caldicott, founder of Physicians for Social Responsibility, writes about plutonium: "It is so toxic that less than one-millionth of a gram, an invisible particle, is a carcinogenic dose. One pound, if uniformly distributed, could hypothetically induce lung cancer in every person on Earth."
In October 1997 the Cassini space probe, to be launched atop of a Titan rocket, will contain 72.3 pounds of plutonium 238.
To put the reliability of the Titan rocket and NASA in perspective, just in 1993 a billion dollar military spy satellite was blown to smithereens as the Titan carrying it blew up. NASA failures are so common, the latest spectacular explosion of an Atlas Launch Vehicle on January 17th, 1997 did not even make the front page of many newspapers!
As if the danger of a failure upon launch weren't enough, NASA then plans to send the Cassini probe to Venus where it will gather momentum. NASA will then 'slingshot' it back to within 312 miles of Earth for additional momentum on its way to Saturn. In other words, it will return to within 3% of the diameter of the earth. Considering that currently 90% of the satellites in orbit right now are non-functional, this should also be reason for great concern.
http://www.gpnj.org/MiscArticles/GPNJ1997/97ar0305.htmlDuring the 1950s and 1960s NASA spent over $10 billion to build the nuclear rocket program which was cancelled in the end because of the fear that a launch accident would contaminate major portions of Florida and beyond.
NASA's expanded focus on nuclear power in space "is not only dangerous but politically unwise," says Dr. Michio Kaku, professor of nuclear physics at the City University of New York. "The only thing that can kill the U.S. space program is a nuclear disaster. The American people will not tolerate a Chernobyl in the sky."
"NASA hasn't learned its lesson from its history involving space nuclear power," says Kaku, "and a hallmark of science is that you learn from previous mistakes. NASA doggedly pursues its fantasy of nuclear power in space."
Since the 1960s there have been eight space nuclear power accidents by the U.S. and the former Soviet Union, several of which released deadly plutonium into the Earth's atmosphere. In April, 1964 a U.S. military satellite with 2.1 pounds of plutonium-238 on-board fell back to Earth and burned up as it hit the atmosphere spreading the toxic plutonium globally as dust to be ingested by the people of the planet. In 1997 NASA launched the Cassini space probe carrying 72 pounds of plutonium that fortunately did not experience failure. If it had, hundreds of thousands of people around the world could have been contaminated.
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/nuclearspace-03b.html
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