Plutonian Over Miami (Moon Over Miami)

[donsu]

http://www.news-journalonline.com/NewsJournalOnline/Opinion/Editorials/03OpOPN45120405.htm


Making too little of plutonium load

NASA is again rolling dice with the lives of the people of Florida.

The space agency intends to launch an Atlas rocket carrying a space probe with 24 pounds of plutonium fuel in January. Once it separates from the rocket, the probe, on what NASA calls its New Horizons mission, would move on through space powered by conventional chemical fuel. The plutonium is contained in a radioisotope thermoelectric generator, or RTG, that is to provide on-board electricity for the probe's instruments -- a mere 180 watts when it gets to its destination of Pluto.

But if the Atlas rocket with the space probe and RTG it is to loft undergoes a catastrophic accident at launch, some of that plutonium could be dispersed -- affecting life in Florida.

NASA calculates the chances of a successful mission at 94 percent. As to the release of plutonium -- long-considered the most deadly radioactive substance known -- NASA puts the odds at 1-in-300. These figures are contained -- and repeated -- in NASA's "Final Environmental Impact Statement for the New Horizons Mission." If people knew they had a 1-in-300 chance of winning the Florida lottery, there would be lines miles long at every store selling lottery tickets from Daytona Beach to Key West.
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NASA isn't the NASA it used to be

since the criminal bushgang invaded and took over NASA it has become as deadly as the bushgang.

[porphyrian]

1. I prefer "Moons Over My-Hammy," but Denny's doesn't make it anymore. n/t

[amitten]

2. That sounds disgusting. I mean, really lewd, for some reason!

Moons over my HAMMY?

[porphyrian]

3. That may be why they discontinued it. - n/t

[Walt Starr]

4. Nothing new here

They've been launching Plutonium for years.

Multiple launches during Clinton's administration.

[drm604]

6. Yes

This is absolutely nothing new. They've been doing it for decades. As far as I know, anything that goes to the outer solar system has a nuclear reactor of one kind or another onboard. Once you're too far from the sun for solar power, there really aren't any options other than nuclear.

[Bill McBlueState]

5. cool

I've been hoping for a long time that NASA would send a probe to Pluto.

Here's the mission website: http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/

Looks like the plan is for the probe to launch in January, rendez-vous with Jupiter in 2007, and reach the Pluto system in 2015. If all goes well, this'll be really exciting.

[don954]

7. you do relize that beyond the mars orbit, there is pretty much no

other way to power space craft than with RTG? Its a risk most of us are willing to take. Also, the canister this thing is in is hard as hell, it was tested by a drop from a plane at 35,000 feet, a train running over it, and several other tests that would flatten most other stuff...