The US began launching space probes with nuclear power in the early 1960's. One of these military satellites powered with a nuclear reactor fell back to Earth in April of 1964.
It was called SNAP 9-A and was launched aboard a Department of Defense weather satellite that failed to reach orbit. The nuclear reactor, as designed, released radioactive debris in our upper atmosphere during reentry and then burned up. Remnants struck the Indian Ocean. A total of 2.1 pounds of plutonium-238 vaporized in the atmosphere and spread worldwide.
Over the years there have been a host of space nuclear accidents by the US and former Soviet Union/Russia.
Dr. John Goffman studied the SNAP 9-A accident and concluded that the dispersed deadly plutonium-238 was a leading cause of the increase in cancers around the world today.
During our 1997 Florida Coalition for
Peace & Justice and Global Network campaign to stop the launch of
the Cassini space probe, with 72 pounds of plutonium-238 onboard,
Goffman was a huge help to us doing frequent media interviews where he
warned of the dangers of global contamination if there was to be a
launch accident.
(Goffman's earliest research was in nuclear physics and chemistry, in close connection to the Manhattan Project. He co-discovered several radioisotopes, notably uranium-233; he was the third person ever to work with plutonium. Later in life, Gofman took on a role as an advocate warning of dangers involved with nuclear power.)
The
nuclear industry currently views space as a new (and wide open) market
for their toxic product that has run its dirty course on Mother Earth.
During
our campaigns in 1989, 1990, and 1997 to stop NASA's Galileo, Ulysses
and Cassini plutonium launches, we learned that the nuclear industry
positioned their agents inside NASA committees that make the decisions
on what kinds of power sources would be placed on those deep space
missions. Similarly, it now appears that the nuclear industry has also infiltrated the
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine that has been
studying missions to Mars. The recommendation, not any surprise, is
that nuclear reactors are the best way to power a Mars mission.
In 1996, just
prior to the launch of Cassini, it was reported that while fabricating
the plutonium generators for the Cassini space probe, 244 cases of
worker contamination occurred at DoE's Los Alamos lab in New Mexico. So
it is not just a launch pad explosion that we worry about.
We fought the DoE and NASA on those previous nuclear launches and continue to warn the world about the story.
The nuclear industry has its sights set on nuclear-powered mining colonies on an assortment of planetary bodies - all necessitating legions of nuclear devices being produced at DoE and then launched on rockets that blow up from time to time.
They are
also now promoting a nuclear rocket to Mars - with reactors for engines. The Pentagon has long claimed that they need nuclear reactors to power space-based weapons.
We
urge the public to help us pressure Congress, NASA and DoE to 'say no'
to nukes in space. We've got to protect life here on this planet. The
best way you can help is to share this information with others so that
we can build an international base of awareness and action around these
issues.
We are now in an economic down-turn. People have lost jobs, homes, health care and even food on their table. Mother Earth is in critical care ward.
Musk's dream of Mars colonization (with nuclear tech) is not on our priority list.
Bruce
No comments:
Post a Comment