{"id":50076,"date":"2021-02-23T08:58:18","date_gmt":"2021-02-23T08:58:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/?p=133362"},"modified":"2021-02-23T08:58:18","modified_gmt":"2021-02-23T08:58:18","slug":"plutonium-in-space-what-are-the-odds-of-a-catastrophe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/02\/23\/plutonium-in-space-what-are-the-odds-of-a-catastrophe\/","title":{"rendered":"Plutonium in Space: What Are the Odds of a Catastrophe?"},"content":{"rendered":"\"\"<\/a>\n
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Photograph Source: NASA – Public Domain<\/p><\/div>\n

With all the media hoopla last week about the Perseverance rover, going almost totally unreported was that its energy source is plutonium\u2014considered the most lethal of all radioactive substances\u2014and nowhere in media\u00a0that NASA projected 1-in-960 odds of the plutonium being released in an accident on the mission.<\/p>\n

\u201cA \u20181-in-960 chance\u2019 of a deadly plutonium release is a real concern\u2014gamblers in Las Vegas would be happy with those odds,\u201d says Bruce Gagnon, coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space.<\/p>\n

Indeed, big-money lotteries have odds far higher than 1-in-960 and routinely people win those lotteries.<\/p>\n

Further, NASA\u2019s Supplementary Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) for the $3.7 billion mission acknowledges that an \u201calternative\u201d power source for Perseverance could have been solar energy. Solar energy using photovoltaic panels has been the power source for a succession of Mars rovers.<\/p>\n

For an accident releasing plutonium on the Perseverance launch\u2014and 1 in 100 rockets undergo major malfunctions on launch mostly by blowing up\u2014NASA in its SEIS described these impacts for the area around the Cape Kennedy under a heading \u201cImpacts of Radiological Releases on the Environment.\u201d<\/p>\n

It states: \u201cIn addition to the potential human health consequences of launch accidents that could result in a release of plutonium dioxide, environmental impacts could also include contamination of natural vegetation, wetlands, agricultural land, cultural, archaeological and historic sites, urban areas, inland water, and the ocean, as well was impacts on wildlife.\u201d<\/p>\n

It adds: \u201cIn addition to the potential direct costs of radiological surveys, monitoring, and potential cleanup following an accident, there are potential secondary societal costs associated with the decontamination and mitigation activities due to launch area accidents. Those costs may include: temporary or longer term relocation of residents; temporary or longer term loss of employment; destruction or quarantine of agricultural products, including citrus crops; land use restrictions; restrictions or bans on commercial fishing; and public health effects and medical care.\u201d<\/p>\n

NASA was compelled to make disclosures about the odds of an accident releasing plutonium, alternatives to using nuclear power on the Perseverance and consequences of a plutonium release under the National Environmental Policy Act.<\/p>\n

Its SEIS can be viewed online at https:\/\/mars.nasa.gov\/mars2020\/files\/mep\/Mars2020_Final_EIS.pdf<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the U.S. is now producing large amounts of Plutonium-238, the plutonium isotope used for space missions. The U.S. stopped producing Plutonium-238 in 1988, and it began obtaining it from Russia, in recent years no longer happening. A series of NASA space shots using Plutonium-238 are planned for coming years.<\/p>\n

Plutonium-238 is 280 times more radioactive<\/a> than Plutonium-239, the plutonium isotope used in atomic bombs and as a \u201ctrigger\u201d in hydrogen bombs.<\/p>\n

There are 10.6 pounds of Plutonium-238 on Perseverance.<\/p>\n

We might have dodged a plutonium bullet on the Perseverance mission. The Atlas V rocket carrying it was launched without blowing up. And the rocket didn\u2019t fall back from orbit with Perseverance and its Plutonium-238 disintegrating on re-entry into the Earth\u2019s atmosphere and plutonium dispersed.<\/p>\n

But with NASA planning more space missions involving nuclear power including developing nuclear-powered rockets for trips to Mars and launching rockets carrying nuclear reactors for placement on the Moon and Mars, space-based nuclear Russian roulette is at hand.<\/p>\n

The acknowledgement that \u201can accident resulting in the release of plutonium dioxide from the MMRTG [Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator] occurs with a probability of 1 in 960\u201d is made repeatedly in the SEIS.<\/p>\n

The amount of electricity produced by the MMRTG on Perseverance is miniscule\u2014some 100 watts, similar to a light bulb.<\/p>\n

A solar alternative to the use of plutonium on the mission is addressed at the start of the SEIS in a \u201cDescription and Comparison of Alternatives\u201d section.<\/p>\n

First is \u201cAlternative 1\u201d which proposes that the rover use a plutonium-fueled MMRTG \u201cto continually provide heat and electric power to the rover\u2019s battery so that the rover could operate and conduct scientific work on the planet\u2019s surface.\u201d<\/p>\n

That is followed by \u201cAlternative 2\u201d which states: \u201cUnder this alternative, NASA would discontinue preparations for the Proposed Action (Alternative 1) and implement a different power system for the Mars rover. The rover would use solar power to operate instead of a MMRTG.\u201d<\/p>\n

The worst U.S. accident involving the use of nuclear power in space came in 1964 when the U.S. satellite Transit 5BN-3, powered by a SNAP-9A plutonium-fueled radioisotope thermoelectric generator, failed to achieve orbit and fell from the sky. It broke apart as it burned up in the atmosphere. That accident was long linked to a spike in global lung cancer rates where the plutonium was spread by Dr. John Gofman, an M.D. and Ph. D., a professor of medical physics at the University of California at Berkeley. NASA, after the SNAP-9A (SNAP for Systems Nuclear Auxiliary Power) accident became a pioneer in developing solar photovoltaic power. All U.S. satellites now are energized by solar power, as is the International Space Station.<\/p>\n

The worst accident involving nuclear power in space in the Soviet\/Russian space program occurred in 1978 when the Cosmos 954 satellite with a nuclear reactor aboard fell from orbit and spread radioactive debris over a 373-mile swath from Great Slave Lake to Baker Lake in Canada. There were 110 pounds of highly-enriched uranium fuel on Cosmos 954.<\/p>\n

I first began writing widely about the use of nuclear power in space 35 years ago when I broke the story in The Nation <\/em>magazine about how the next mission of the ill-fated shuttle Challenger was to loft the Ulysses space probe fueled with 24.2 pounds of Plutonium-238 (to conduct orbits around the sun).<\/p>\n

If the Challenger had blown up on that mission, scheduled for May 1986, instead of blowing up on January 28, 1986, and the plutonium released, it would not have been six astronauts and teacher-in-space Chris McAuliffe dying but many more people.<\/p>\n

Pursuing the issue, I authored the books The Wrong Stuff: The Space Program\u2019s Nuclear Threat to Our Planet <\/em><\/a>and Weapons in Space<\/a>, <\/em>and wrote and presented the TV documentary Nukes In Space: The Nuclearization and Weaponization of the Heavens <\/em>and other TV programs. And I have written many hundreds of articles.<\/p>\n

The absence in media reporting on the Perseverance Mars rover of the dangers involving the nuclear material on it and the chances of that plutonium being dispersed is not new.<\/p>\n

In The Wrong Stuff <\/em>I include a section on \u201cThe Space Con Job.\u201d<\/p>\n

I quote extensively from an article published in the Columbia Journalism Review <\/em>after the Challenger accident by William Boot, its former editor, titled \u201cNASA and the Spellbound Press.\u201d He wrote: \u201cDazzled by the space agency\u2019s image of technological brilliance, space reporters spared NASA thorough scrutiny that might have improved chances of averting tragedy\u2014through hard-hitting investigations drawing Congress\u2019s wandering attention to the issue of shuttle safety.\u201d<\/p>\n

He found \u201cgullibility\u201d in the press. \u201cThe press,\u201d he wrote, has been \u201cinfatuated by man-in-space adventures.\u201d He related that \u201cU.S. journalists have long had a love affair with the space program.\u201d He said \u201cmany space reporters appeared to regard themselves as participants, along with NASA, in a great cosmic quest. Transcripts of NASA press confernces reveal that it was not unusual for reporters to use the first person plural. (\u2018When are we going to launch?)\u201d<\/p>\n

Also, in The Wrong Stuff <\/em>I wrote about an address on \u201cScience and the Media\u201d by the New York Times <\/em>space reporter John Noble Wilford in 1990 at Brookhaven National Laboratory. In it he declared: \u201cI am particularly intrigued by science and scientists\u2026My favorite subject is planetary science.\u201d After his talk, I interviewed him and he acknowledged that \u201cthere\u2019s still a lot of space reporters who are groupies.\u201d Still, he went on, \u201csome of the things that NASA does are so great, so marvelous, so it\u2019s easy to forget to be critical.\u201d<\/p>\n

On NBC\u2019s Today <\/em>show, the attitude of the reporters was as celebratory on the morning of the landing as the label of the video aired showing \u201cJubilation at NASA Control.\u201d Never was there a mention of nuclear power or plutonium or the acknowledged risks of an accident and dispersal of plutonium.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am disheartened that the media shows little inclination to mention the words ‘plutonium’ or ‘probabilities of accidental release’ in their so-called reporting of the Mars rover arrival. You have to question who they work for,\u201d says Bruce Gagnon of the Global Network.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe daily hear the excited anticipation of the nuclear industry as stories reveal the growing plans for hosts of launches of nuclear devices\u2014more rovers on Mars, mining colonies on the moon, even nuclear reactors to power rockets bound for Mars. The nuclear industry is rolling the dice while people on Earth have their fingers crossed in the hope technology does not fail\u2014as it often does,\u201d said Gagnon, of the Maine-based international organization that since its formation in 1992 has been challenging the use of nuclear power and the deployment of weapons in space. The U.S. has favored nuclear power as an energy source for space-based weapons.<\/p>\n

Further, said Gagnon, \u201cthe media, while ignoring the Mars rover plutonium story, is also guilty of not reporting about the years of toxic contamination at the Department of Energy nuclear labs where these space nuclear devices are produced. The Idaho Nuclear Laboratory and Los Alamos Nuclear lab in New Mexico have long track records of worker and environmental contamination during this dirty space nuke fabrication process.\u201d<\/p>\n

Declared Gagnon: \u201cThe public will need to do more than cross our fingers in hopes that nothing goes wrong.\u00a0We need to speak out loudly so Congress, NASA and the DoE hear that we do not support the nuclearization of the heavens. Go solar or better yet\u2014stay home and use our tax dollars to take care of the legions of people without jobs, health care, food, or heat.\u00a0 Mars can wait.\u201d<\/p>\n

The post Plutonium in Space: What Are the Odds of a Catastrophe?<\/a> appeared first on CounterPunch.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

This post was originally published on CounterPunch.org<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With all the media hoopla last week about the Perseverance rover, going almost totally unreported was that its energy source is plutonium\u2014considered the most lethal of all radioactive substances\u2014and nowhere in media\u00a0that NASA projected 1-in-960 odds of the plutonium being released in an accident on the mission. \u201cA \u20181-in-960 chance\u2019 of a deadly plutonium release More<\/a><\/p>\n

The post Plutonium in Space: What Are the Odds of a Catastrophe?<\/a> appeared first on CounterPunch.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":253,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50076"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/253"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50076"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50076\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50077,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50076\/revisions\/50077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}