12 May
2003
12 May
'03
2:02 p.m.
Vaguely true. They're concerned about a pad explosion or unexpected reentry
that could result in plutonium being scattered around the countryside.
Plutonium is an extremely toxic metal. 1 microgram will kill you damn quick.
Plus it's readily absorbed by tissue, which means everywhere you have a Pu
speck, you're irradiating tissue with ionizing radiation in a few centimeter
radius. Not good for a long term outlook.
Incidently, the tree huggers worries on this matter are not completely
unfounded. Because of launch weight issues, the shielding material is not
really designed to survive reentry.
--John
On Monday 12 May 2003 14:20 pm, chris wrote:
From what I remember, those probes (and most (all?)
other deep space
probes, I
think), use a radioisotope decay generator for
power. This is a
sub-critical-mass nuclear power plant; it uses the heat produced by a
near-critical lump of plutonium to generate electricity, rather then using
fission to produce heat to produce electricity.
So is this the power supply all those whiney people were bitching about
NASA trying to put into a Mars probe? They were all afraid the probe
would explode during launch and be ground zero of a nuclear blast (or
some other most likely vagely based on reality doomsday outcome activists
are notorious for).
-chris
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