Ayers.PA@XEROX.COM (02/25/86)
Plase let's stop the "zillion fatal doses of Plutonium" non-science
nonsense in the space digest.
Slocum@hi-multics.arpa writes that
This orbiter carrys a load of 43 pounds of Plutonium on-board. ...
Plutonium is widely felt to be the most poisonous substance
anywhere,
even if you disregard the radioactivity. It has been said that less
than a pound spread thinly enough could kill every human being. Now,
imagine the shuttle exploding with this cargo. Ten miles up.
Practically maximum possible dispersion. In the very least, several
thousand, perhaps several hundred thousand people would develop
cancer and plutonium poisoning.
This statement is not science. It fails the basic agree-with-the-data
test.
I pointed out earlier that much much more than 43 pounds of Pu has been
vaporized in the upper atmosphere by A-Bomb tests. "Maximum possible
dispersion" indeed -- we're not talking about a break-apart here, but
genuine vaporization-and-condense-into-tiny-particles.
Slocum states that "in the very least, several thousand ... people would
develop ... plutonium poisoning" from his 43 pounds. [Even though it
wouldn't be that well dispersed, and would be centered over the Atlantic
ocean.]
If that was true, then the entire state of Nevada's population would be
dead by now from the A-Bomb tests of the 50s and 60s. desj@brahms.BERKELEY.EDU (David desJardins) (02/26/86)
In article <860225-113525-3597@Xerox> Ayers.PA@XEROX.COM writes: >Please let's stop the "zillion fatal doses of Plutonium" non-science >nonsense in the space digest. > >I pointed out earlier that much much more than 43 pounds of Pu has been >vaporized in the upper atmosphere by A-Bomb tests. "Maximum possible >dispersion" indeed -- we're not talking about a break-apart here, but >genuine vaporization-and-condense-into-tiny-particles. While of course this is correct, I do think that there is some possible danger associated with an explosion on or near the launch pad. An explosion ten miles up over the Atlantic is not much of a concern, but it does seem possible that an explosion on the launch pad could at the least contaminate the launch area. Talking about killing several thousand people is absurd, but I think NASA should at least consider the probable effects of such an accident... -- David desJardins
Slocum.CSCDA@HI-MULTICS.ARPA (Brett Slocum) (02/27/86)
I'm sorry but this is not "non-science nonsense". A previous message addressed the dispersal question. I remember hearing during the news coverage that the shuttle blew up with a force of about a kiloton. Add whatever you want for the Centaur Upper Stage. Certainly that should be ample to pulverize a significant portion of the 43 pounds. (BTW, Ulysses had about 25 pounds too.) Give me a break, the biggest piece to survive was a 12 foot piece of the airframe, (as I recall). > If that was true, the the entire state of Nevada's population would be > dead by now from the A-Bomb tests of the 50's and 60's. There is a BIG difference between low altitude atmospheric testing and 10 miles up. The winds at that level or anywhere in between are significant. Particles released at this level could remain airborne for a long time, perhaps circumnavigate the globe. In the shuttle disaster, the big pieces did come down mostly in the ocean over a ten mile radius. Who knows where the little pieces came down, or whether they even have come down yet. The population density within a 50 mile radius of Cape Canaveral (or 10 miles downrange, even over the ocean) is an awful lot higher than the Nevada Test Range. Also, I recall that there is a higher than average cancer rate in Nevada. I thought I was being pretty conservative by saying "several thousand, perhaps several hundred thousand". None of this adds up to conclusive proof of anything (I never intended to present a formal scientific proof), but by that same reasoning, the tobacco companies still insist that there is no conclusive proof that smoking tobacco causes lung cancer. Brett Slocum <Slocum at HI-MULTICS.ARPA>
animal@ihlpa.UUCP (D. Starr) (02/27/86)
> [concerning the claim that plutonium fuel from Galileo would have posed dangers had that probe been aboard Challenger...] > > If that was true, then the entire state of Nevada's population would be > dead by now from the A-Bomb tests of the 50s and 60s. The state of Nevada's not dead, but the state of Utah, which is downwind of the bomb test sites, has an unusually high cancer rate.
barb@oliven.UUCP (Barbara Jernigan) (02/28/86)
> -- David desJardins > ...I do think that there is some possible > danger associated with an explosion on or near the launch pad. An explosion > ten miles up over the Atlantic is not much of a concern, but it does seem > possible that an explosion on the launch pad could at the least contaminate > the launch area. Talking about killing several thousand people is absurd, > but I think NASA should at least consider the probable effects of such an > accident... Do you suggest they haven't? I am, perhaps, naive, but I'm also married to a conscientious engineer. He can't be an oddity (though he *is* unique ;-). I'm sure the engineers from the word go consider the possibility of an explosion shredding the payload. *I* wouldn't send a volatile substance (especially something as gnarly as Plutonium) up without encasing it in some pretty strong stuff -- and I doubt that NASA (even their ignorant beaurocrats) would be so naive as to *not* at least acknowledge a worst case scenario in their designs. They may make mistakes, but they're not stupid. Any JPL designers out there to affirm or nay-say? Barb
bzs@bu-cs.UUCP (Barry Shein) (02/28/86)
>Ayers.PA@XEROX.COM writes in reply to fears of plutonium poisoning from >a space accident: >If that was true, then the entire state of Nevada's population would be >dead by now from the A-Bomb tests of the 50s and 60s. Perhaps, but surely you've seen the several articles on towns near the test sites in Nevada where the incidence of leukemia and other cancers is alarmingly high and attributed to exposures caused by the early tests. They are certainly not all dead, but I am not sure I envy them. There seems to be a lot of agreement among the medical community that there is NO SUCH THING as a safe level of exposure. Why do you flail against this 'safe' assumption so? It took us 30+ years to accept that (and still not universally.) I do not feel comfortable with these people gambling like this with my future. Perhaps if they would hear us it would motivate research into safer sources of power for space flights? I believe at this point in time nuclear fission is the easy way out for such projects. Surely we can just label it unacceptable and provide funding for those who can propose plausible alternatives. Fusion, for example, would appear to be very promising and from friends who work in this area I hear the funding is barely adequate, I have no idea why as they seem to be making slow but steady progress and it seems like a wonderful source of power for all sorts of things. -Barry Shein, Boston University
henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) (03/02/86)
> There seems to be a lot of agreement among the medical community that > there is NO SUCH THING as a safe level of exposure... I believe the agreement is that this is the proper assumption for purposes of health planning, not that it is necessarily physical fact. If nothing else, there comes a point where exposure is an insignificant fraction of the natural background exposure. -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry
knudsen@ihwpt.UUCP (mike knudsen) (03/04/86)
> I do not feel comfortable with these people gambling like this with my > future. Perhaps if they would hear us it would motivate research into > safer sources of power for space flights? I believe at this point in > time nuclear fission is the easy way out for such projects. Surely we > can just label it unacceptable and provide funding for those who can > propose plausible alternatives. Fusion, for example, would appear to ^^^^^^^ > be very promising and from friends who work in this area I hear the > funding is barely adequate, I have no idea why as they seem to be making > slow but steady progress and it seems like a wonderful source of power > for all sorts of things. > > -Barry Shein, Boston University Fusion may or may not be viable in the foreseeable future. I've always been in favor of it, but it keeps eluding our grasp. Major problem seems to be one of critical size-- the smallest possible fusion reactor is HUGE, like maybe it would fit in the AstroDome, maybe not. Hopefully, someday, a great source of power for our cities and industry. But you'll never see one of these in space. Several acres (!) of solar cells would be a better bet. mike k PS: the real near-term solution is to beef up the shells of the plutonium power supplies so they cana take a shuttle explosion and crash into the sea without rupturing. The present designs can *almost* do that now; I heard they are verified to 1600 units of blast but the shuttle blowup may be around 2000 or 2400. The argument is whether they need to be beefed up the extra 50% or less.
kwan@smeagol.UUCP (Richard Kwan) (03/05/86)
> > -- David desJardins > > ... Talking about killing several thousand people is absurd, > > but I think NASA should at least consider the probable effects of such an > > accident... > > Do you suggest they haven't? > ... *I* wouldn't send a volatile substance > (especially something as gnarly as Plutonium) up without encasing it in some > pretty strong stuff -- and I doubt that NASA (even their ignorant beaurocrats) > would be so naive as to *not* at least acknowledge a worst case scenario in > their designs. They may make mistakes, but they're not stupid. > > Any JPL designers out there to affirm or nay-say? > > Barb Well, I'm not really a designer. At least, not for a spacecraft. Greg Earle and I have tried to speak to this matter in earlier messages, though now we wonder if they got out. I was at an "all hands" briefing concerning Galileo a while back. As of that meeting, the prevailing opinion was that the plutonium WOULD NOT have leaked if Galileo were in the explosion. HOWEVER, after the primary investigation is over, people here at JPL want to get their hands on the available data and verify that. What did they design for? I have no idea. (sigh... I'm not even sure who to ask.) But, ya gotta remember, any scenarios projected in the past have strictly been scenarios. And Barb, I tend to agree that the engineers here are not stupid. Some are a little weird... (please, JPLers, no flames :-) {-: oh, yeah; I can attest, each one of them is unique. :-} DISCLAIMER: I don't work on Galileo; I work on Magellan (Venus Radar Mapper) which will fly economy class by using Galileo spare parts. But that doesn't matter. I don't know enough to speak authoritatively on either anyway. -- Rick Kwan JPL Spacecraft Data Systems sdcrdcf!smeagol!kwan (UUCP) ia-sun2!smeagol!kwan@csvax.caltech.EDU (ARPA) -------------------------------------------------------------------- "...jumpin' into hyperspace ain't like dustin' crops, boy." H. Solo --------------------------------------------------------------------
jao@valid.UUCP (John Oswalt) (03/05/86)
I'm sure that 43 pounds of plutonium in the atmosphere would kill
zillions of people, for very small values of zillion.
--
John Oswalt (..!{hplabs,amd,pyramid,ihnp4}!pesnta!valid!jao)mvs@meccts.UUCP (Michael V. Stein) (03/07/86)
In article <221@bu-cs.UUCP> bzs@bu-cs.UUCP (Barry Shein) writes: >Perhaps, but surely you've seen the several articles on towns near the >test sites in Nevada where the incidence of leukemia and other cancers >is alarmingly high and attributed to exposures caused by the early tests. >They are certainly not all dead, but I am not sure I envy them. > >There seems to be a lot of agreement among the medical community that >there is NO SUCH THING as a safe level of exposure. Why do you flail >against this 'safe' assumption so? It took us 30+ years to accept that >(and still not universally.) > > -Barry Shein, Boston University I would greatly like to read any reputable articles on these cancers. If they are truely as massive and epidemic as you imply, this should be publizied more since it is in direct violation of all major radiation tests done for about the last 30 years. As far as no safe level, the reason scientists use the straight line linear hypothesis is that it will assume the maximum possible danger. There has been quite a bit of debate among researchers as to whether this is too stringent of a criteria. Even assuming it is true, the amount of cosmic radiation hitting people every year (about 44 millirems at sea level) is far greater then the 4 millirems reaching people from the world's weapon testing fallout. What are far more dangerous and common are the high levels of radon gas found in many homes. Depending on the amount of ventilation and geography these radiation levels sometimes reach many times the level allowed as an occupational risk. I recall seeing a reference that up to 10,000 lung cancer deaths a year may be caused by indoor radiation. -- Michael V. Stein Minnesota Educational Computing Corporation - Technical Services UUCP ihnp4!dicomed!meccts!mvs