mts%gn@cdp.uucp (10/08/89)
Media Transcription Service : Defence Information,
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TRANSCRIPT Ref No. 562
Channel 4 Television - 7 p.m. News
Tuesday, 3rd October, 1989
Report featuring comment by Dr Clayne Yeates of NASA
re. Plutonium/Galileo Mission
Programme Editor: Tony Millett
Deputy Editor: Garron Baines
Editor: Richard Tait
Presenter:
"Residents living near the NASA launch site in Florida are going
to court to try to stop next Thursday's flight by the space shuttle
Atlantis. They are worried because the shuttle will carry the space
probe 'Galileo', which is powered by plutonium. Locals say if anything
goes wrong, the whole area could be showered with radioactivity."
Reporter (Alex Thomson)
"Jupiter in 1995 and this (simulation) is the way NASA sees the
'Galileo' probe descending through the vast planet's atmosphere, at a
hundred thousand miles an hour, sending back data as it does so.
Florida in 1989 (film) and, nine days from launch, the mission has
more immediate problems. 'Galileo's' thermo-nuclear power generator
contains fifty pounds of plutonium 238, one of the most toxic
radioactive substances. Next week, a judge will hear an application to
have the launch prevented, by those who fear a nuclear accident. They
say if that happened, as the shuttle 'Atlantis' carries 'Galileo' into
orbit, Florida could be showered with deadly plutonium dust."
Lanny Simkins ('Stop Galileo' Group):
"A micro-gram of plutonium, a tiny, tiny particle, breathed into
the lungs will cause lung cancer so, in that fifty pounds of plutonium
are, theoretically, tens of thousands of lung cancers."
Reporter:
"But NASA says the shuttle launch is straightforward, and it
rejected a safer conventional launch to prove the versatility of the
shuttle, building in safety measures to protect the deadly fuel."
Dr Clayne Yeates (NASA):
"All of these steps have been taken to look at the safety
involved in this, and submitted to the White House for approval. And
that approval has been given by the White House to go ahead, and we
feel that it's, er, completely safe."
Reporter:
"Just as well, since NASA's own figures indicate it would cost
two hundred million pounds per square mile to decontaminate plutonium
radiation."
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