On January 11, if all goes well, a rocket will lift off from Cape Canaveral carrying a space probe on its way to Pluto. There will be 24 pounds of plutonium in the probe's RTG -- a Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator -- enough to provide 180 watts of electricity for use by the instruments when the probe gets to Pluto. But if during the launch there is an accident in which even a small amount of plutonium gets into the atmosphere, it will be disastrous. According to
Another NASA Plutonium Launch in Counterpunch (Dec. 13), the source of most of the information in this diary:
"a fatal dose of plutonium is just a millionth of a gram; anyone breathing just the tiniest particle of plutonium dispersed in an accident could die."
NASA's environmental impact statement says there is "about 6 percent probability" of an accident during launch, and a 1-in-620 chance of a release of plutonium. However, there have been three such accidents before -- out of the 25 U.S. space missions carrying plutonium fuel. The worst occurred in 1964 when a satellite containing an RTG with 2.1 pounds of plutonium dropped to Earth after failing to "achieve orbit." The generator disintegrated in the fall and
the resulting dispersal of plutonium caused an increase in global lung cancer rates, according to Dr. John Gofman, professor emeritus of medical physics at the University of California at Berkeley.
After the 1964 accident, NASA turned to solar energy. Now all satellites--and the International Space Station--are solar-powered, but NASA uses plutonium for space probes. In contrast, the Rosetta space probe heading for a comet near Jupiter, which was launched this year by the European Space Agency, uses solar power to provide electricity.
Opponents argue that the launch is a violation of the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, the basic international law on space. They also note the costs to decontaminate land on which the plutonium falls: from about $241 million to $1.3 billion per square mile, although compensation would be limited by the Price-Anderson Act of 1957 and a cap of $10 billion for property damage, illness and death resulting from a "nuclear incident." (The cap for damage outside the United States cannot exceed $100 million.)
Says one of the opponents, Bruce Gagnon, the coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space: "One thing we know is that space technology can and does fail and when you mix deadly plutonium into the equation, you are asking for catastrophe." NASA, he says, is "playing nuclear Russian roulette with the public." Karl Grossman, the author of the Counterpunch article, says wisely: "If space is to be explored, let that be done safely. To destroy a portion of life on Earth to explore space makes no sense."
It is unlikely that the opponents will prevail. I recall the effort in 1997 to stop the launch of Cassini, which safely reached Saturn last year and carried 72 pounds of plutonium. We were lucky in 1997. According to Dr. Helen Caldecott, "a radiation health effects expert," if there had been an accident and even a pound of the plutonium had dispersed into the earth's atmosphere, it would have caused a fatal lung cancer in every human being.
Please contribute your knowledge and opinions of this issue, and also take the poll. For more details about the "New Horizons" probe, see NASA planning mission to Pluto, an excellent kos diary which does not, however, discuss the danger of the plutonium on board.
