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News: NASA said in late 2009 it will need 30 kilograms of plutonium-238 for 3 planetary probes planned before 2020 (including the 'Jupiter Europa Orbiter' which requires 24.6 kilograms) and over 50 kilograms for manned lunar missions planned through 2030.  NASA says it will be 'out of business' if Congress and the Russians don't supply the rare Pu238 dope 'needed' to power these space probes.  But they're lying.  They could use solar tech instead.  If the Jupiter Europa Orbiter fails, breaks apart and burns up in Earth's atmosphere, there could be as many as 10 million deaths.  The Mars Science Laboratory rover, with 'no less than 4.8 kilograms' of plutonium dioxide (mostly Pu238) on board when it launches in late 2011, may only kill a million or two in case of an accident.  In April 2010, NASA found a 'slightly faster than expected degradation rate' in the plutonium battery, which NASA now calls a MMRTG (multi-mission radioisotope thermoelectric generator).  (It will always be an RTG to us).  One more reason to SCRAP THE PLUTONIUM STUFF, NASA, AND GO SOLAR.   It is apropos that the Mar's Rover has the moniker 'Curiosity' for when it burns up in Earth's atmosphere and contaminates billions, the mutant survivors will say Curiosity is What Killed the Cat Human. Or, more correctly, they will say it was the degradation of our society's ability to stop reckless applications of nuclear radiation. More

Table of contents:

Nuclear rocket development

United States nuclear powered satellite 'mission failures'

U.S. RTG-satellites

Soviet Union's failed nuclear-satellite missions

Space debris, Sternglass and radioactive fallout from space

Plutonium 238 - packing quite a punch for a thing so small

Conclusion: Nuclear disaster awaits

Action Step: Ban Nuclear Power Beyond Earth Act

Action page

Nuclear rocket development

Between 1955 and 1972, the Atomic Energy Commission, the predecessor to the Department of Energy, conducted a series of about 20 tests as part of various nuclear-powered rocket programs.  The first of these programs was dubbed 'ROVER,' whose aim was to produce a nuclear reactor that could be deployed on space missions. Various components of ROVER included the KIWI project, which designed, built and tested a series of nuclear reactors from 1955 to 1964, and NERVA (Nuclear Energy for Rocket Vehicle Applications), which was formed in 1961 to design the first generation of a nuclear rocket engine.  NERVA focused on using nuclear power to replace chemical rockets for the latter stages of launches. 

In 1960, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) Space Nuclear Systems Office jointly formed a nuclear rocket development program with the goal of developing nuclear reactors for use in the space program.  They established and managed a test area at the Nevada Test Site (NTS) called the Nuclear Rocket Development Station (NRDS), located in NTS's Area 25, which is the test site's largest Area and located in the southwestern corner.  (Various airlines played a role in this Nuclear Rocket Development Station (NRDS), including Pan American World Airways.)  In Area 26, a related program oversaw the development of a nuclear ramjet engine.   

Nuclear rocket testing incidents: A Los Alamos Laboratory report noted that during the 1955-1972 timeframe at least five tests released radioactive materials into the Nevada desert. In at least one incident in 1960, aircraft and its crew were flown through radioactive rocket engine exhaust, which registered radiation readings of 990,000 Rem/hr in the air near the rocket.   Kiwi-TNT (Kiwi Transient Nuclear Test) was a simulated rocket test in which the reactor was deliberately destroyed.   On January 12, 1965, the reactor explosion released a radioactive cloud that was tracked by aircraft as it passed over Los Angeles and to the Pacific Ocean.  Downwind monitoring equipment recorded increased radioactivity in Barstow, San Bernardino, Los Angeles and San Diego.   (Radioactivity 1.5 miles west of Lathrop Wells (near the SW border of NTS) was 860,000 picocurie-seconds per cubic meter, equal to a total thyroid dose of 3 milliRads.  The whole body dose from all 1965 KIWI test-fallout in that location was 14.2 millirems). During the Kiwi-TNT test, between 5 and 20 percent of the reactor fuel was vaporized.   More than 150 residents were issued film badges, and food samples were collected in the downwind area.  The Kiwi series - of nuclear reactor tests - was part of Project Rover and included Kiwi TNT, EP-3, EP-4, EP-5, and Phoebus 1-A EP4 - together, the fallout from these tests went in all cardinal directions from the NTS and contaminated Nevada's and California's milk to levels up to 180 picoCuries per liter of Iodine-131, which equates to a 29 milliRem/milliRad thyroid dose).  See a map of the fallout-trajectories for Kiwi series in 1965 ; see PHS dose data  These fallout incidents occurred after the 1963 (above-ground) test ban treaty signed by the U.S. and Russia. A 1995 DOE report mentioned that all rocket and ramjet engine tests released about 834,000 Curies into the environment. The nuclear rocket program was revived in 1992 by NASA and the Air Force agreement in code-named TIMBERLAND as part of the Star Wars program. The Timberwind 'pebble bed reactor concept' during the late 1980s was part of space power program by DOE/DOD?   One test of a rocket malfunctioned and the rocket landed northwest of Goldfield, Nevada.

The NRDS conducted a number of open-air nuclear reactor tests, and tests of nuclear motors/engines and nuclear furnaces from 1959 to 1973.   In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the former maintenance, assembly and disassembly buildings were home to the world's largest hot cells dedicated to radioactive materials research.  

The only nuclear rocket test was conducted at the Nevada Test Site(NTS) on July 19, 1957 in Area 10.  Code-named 'John,' the rocket (a W-25 warhead for a 'Genie'  nuclear air-to-air rocket missile) traveled 4,240 meters in 4.5 seconds before detonating with a 1.7 kiloton yield.

Nuclear spacecraft in the 21st century

In late December 2009, the head of Russia's space agency said that his agency is launching research into a nuclear-engine-powered spacecraft for intra-solar system exploratory missions.  It is believed that the Russian Federal Space Agency's spacecraft would be based on a nuclear-electric design and not entail the use of nuclear rockets.  In a nutshell, a nuclear-electric-engineered spacecraft would carry a series of megawatt nuclear reactors that would generate heat and the heat would be converted to electricity to 'fuel' an ionic propulsion drive.  The prospect of carrying tons and tons of highly-enriched uranium aboard a spacecraft, however, is lunacy.  In the event of a launch failure, the craft and its uranium could come down and explode like an atomic bomb.  If it crashes intact, it could be stolen by terrorists who could fashion many crude nuclear bombs.  If it broke up in our atmosphere, radioactive debris would rain on Earth.  If it burned up, it would poison billions of people.  Even if the mission 'went off without a hitch,' the spacecraft would have to come back to Earth orbit (from the moon or Mars).  And then what?  It would have to be 'parked' in Earth orbit and the prospect of a huge pack of fission products - akin to a mini-Chernobyl - floating above Earth is a very scary one.

Nuclear space missions

United States

The only nuclear reactor launched and used for a U.S. space mission flew onboard OPS/4682, nicknamed 'Snapshot.'  Snapshot, launched in April 1965, was an experiment to see if a nuclear reactor could be subjected to rocket launch, started and operated in orbit. The craft's experimental nuclear reactor dubbed 'Snap 10A' weighed 230 pounds and was fueled with Uranium-235.   Snapshot operated for 43 days but was shut down due to a voltage regulator malfunction; it was not related to the reactor.  Snapshot is currently in a 3,000-year orbit at 1,300 kilometers (at the latest, in 3,000 years the nuclear reactor will come crashing into Earth's atmosphere.)

After Snap 10-A, all nuclear-powered U.S. spacecraft ran off Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators or RTGs.  RTGs use heat given off by the natural decay of radioactive isotopes to supply energy to thermoelectric generators.  The most popular isotopes used in RTGs or 'atomic batteries' as they were once called are Strontium-90, Curium-242, Plutonium-238 and Polonium-210.   Most of the RTGs, however, used in the U.S. space program used Plutonium 238 (only Transit 4A and B used Polonium-210).  Over 45 RTGs have powered over two dozen U.S. spacecraft since 1961 including Apollo, Viking, Galileo, and other exploratory craft, as well as many civil and military satellites.  Currently, six U.S. spacecraft containing RTGs are orbiting the Earth at around 1,000 kilometers and two satellites are at geo-stationary orbits, at about 36,000 kilometers.  If you add 'Snapshot,' then there are a total of 9 radiation sources orbiting the Earth of U.S. origin.   

There have been three accidents involving RTGs in U.S. spacecraft.  In April 1964, the U.S. Navy's Transit-5BN-3 navigation satellite, equipped with a RTG onboard, failed to enter orbit and broke up into pieces. The satellite's SNAP-9A power unit burned up in the atmosphere and scattered about 2.1 pounds of plutonium-238 over the the Indian Ocean.  Later soil sampling revealed that the radiation spread to all continents and all latitudes.  According to the article 'Nuclear Satellites: Why Has the Government Downplayed Their Risks?' that appeared in the Jan/Feb 1984 issue of the journal 'Environment': 'The resulting plutonium contamination of the atmosphere and exposed surface areas [from Transit 5BN3's burn-up] was quite great - some three times the total plutonium-238 contamination that had resulted from all the previous nuclear tests.'   (See graph of stratospheric inventory by hemisphere of Snap 9-A plutonium 238 spanning 1964 to 1972; see graph of Pu-238 in ground level air from 1966-1969 in femtocuries (fCi per cubic meter); a femtocurie is a quadrillionth, or thousand trillionth, of a curie.

In May 1968, Nimbus B-1, a non-military meteorological satellite, failed to reach orbit and returned to earth; its two RTGs - containing 4.2 pounds of plutonium - stayed intact and were recovered off the Southern California coast.  Finally, the aborted Apollo 13 mission's RTG broke up during re-entry and about 8.3 pounds of plutonium-238 landed in the Tonga trench at the bottom of the South Pacific Ocean near New Zealand.  No radiation leakage has been detected (yet).  

Learn how U.S. high-altitude nuclear testing affected orbiting satellites - and how one U.S. nuclear test, dubbed 'Starfish,' disabled about one-third of all low-earth orbit satellites in 1962.

In early Augusxt 2009, Madhavan Nair, Chairman of India's space agency, ISRO, told the media: "We are thinking of powering some parts of Chandrayaan II with nuclear power and it will power the spacecraft when it revolves around the dark side of the moon."  Nair's cryptic alluding to 'nuclear power' refers to none other than a RTG(s)-powered with highly poisonous Plutonium 238.  

Soviet Union

The Soviets were much more prolific (and prone to mishaps) in their research, development and application of space-borne nuclear reactors than the Americans.  The Soviet Union launched 33 spacecraft with nuclear reactors aboard Radar Ocean Reconnaissance Satellites (RORSATs) as part of the 'Cosmos' series and, as we examine below, two of these re-entered Earth's atmosphere.

Cosmos, or Kosmos, comes from the Russian word 'Космос' whose Greek root means 'order' or 'well ordered.'  Cosmos was a designation for a whole multitude of Russian satellites of different categories and orbits.  

All RORSAT nuclear reactors contained 31.1 kilograms of more than 90% highly enriched Uranium 235 (U-235) to fuel the RORSAT radar system.   Standard practice after the RORSATs fulfilled their purpose was to jettison the nuclear reactors from their orbit at 255 kilometers into a 'burial' orbit (900 to 1000km).  Two satellites' nuclear power units, however, failed to separate (Cosmos-1818 and Cosmos-1867).  Eight others' damaged reactors continue to circle the earth in 'burial' orbit.   

The Soviets used RTGs only for their first two nuclear powered missions (Cosmos 80 and 94) before switching to nuclear reactors power for their RORSATs.   The Russian RTGs, which power two currently orbiting 1965 satellites, contained Polonium-210.  The U.S. used Polonium-210 initially in its RTGs before switching to the much more toxic Plutonium-238.

In Earth orbit, there are currently a total of 44 radiation sources from Russia (and the former Soviet Union) that consist of either intact or separated portions of the 35 Soviet-era nuclear-powered spacecraft that were launched (and didn't re-enter the atmosphere) (source: 'The Problem of Space Junk,' published by RIA Novosti on Feb. 13, 2009).  

Nuclear accidents of Soviet spacecraft were of the launch-failure and re-entry types.  Their accidents included - in chronology - a possible 1969 RORSAT launch failure, Cosmos 300 and 305 (RTGs, re-entered), a 1973 RORSAT launch failure and re-entries of Cosmos 954 (reactor), Cosmos 1402 (reactor), and the Mars-96 space probe (RTG).  (Mars 96 contained 0.44 pounds of plutonium and both Cosmos 1402 and 954 were filled with 68 pounds of uranium.) 

In the case of Cosmos 954, U.S. government officials and the North American Air Defense Command knew of the satellite's decaying orbit and impending crash somewhere on Earth (including major population centers), but the public wasn't told until after landfall.  The crashed satellite released about 100 pounds of Uranium-235, or the amount of fission material found in 10 crude nuclear bombs, into Canada's environment (air, water, land).    Cosmos 954's reactor was thought to have contained around 500,000 Curies of Uranium and various fission products prior to its re-entry - 500,000 Curies is the estimated amount of Iodine-131 released to the air from the Hanford facility during its first 13 years of its existence.  An itemized list of radioactive debris reprinted in the book 'Nuclear Energy and Nuclear Weapons Production' (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, 1979) listed Cosmos 954's 'remains' found on the ground, including solid beryllium-cylinders, metal plates, black cubes, pipes, fibers and metal struts scattered around a 124,000 square kilometer area including Great Slave Lake and Artillery Lake.  Several solid cylinders (there were 'several dozen' measuring 2 cm-by-10 cm long; and about 6 cylinders measuring 25 cm-by-9.5 cm) triggered radioactive readings of 100 mRem/hr to 100 Rem/hr; and a 'solid black cube' that emitted a lethal dose of 500 Rem/hr at contact.  Although most of the large radioactive metal components were recovered, innumerable small flakes, each of which triggered 100 mRem/hr to 3 Rem/hr, and quite possibly much higher doses, were never recovered.  They still contaminate the backcountry of Northern Canada and although their radioactivity has decreased over time, a hiker or 'game animal' can receive a poisonous dose; likewise, some drinking water may be impacted from water-soluble fission products that were never recovered.

The Soviet Mars 96 probe contained four atomic battery canisters each containing one-half pound of plutonium.  The probe broke up and then burned up over the countries of Chile and Bolivia.  One observer (John Van Der Brink) described the November 16, 1996 re-entry of Mars 96 as a streak of light brighter than any star and having a tail twelve times the width of a full moon.  Although the type of post-crash investigation like Cosmos 954 never happened for Mars 96 in South America, it is believed the debris scattered over a 10,000 square mile area (50 mi. x 200 mi. path oriented SW to NE centered 20 mi. east of town of Iquique, Chile).  The impacted area is the watershed for several cities.   [Information gleaned from article in Spring 1997 issue of 'Covert Action Quarterly']

Reentries aren't the only problem with Soviet nuclear satellites.  Liquid sodium-potassium, the cooling liquid used in RORSAT reactors, has been leaking for over a decade from several Russian-spacecraft, coagulating in the form of 0.6 to 2.0 cm droplets in large quantities in the 900 to 1,000 km orbit.  

Fallout from Space

The growing number of satellite collisions and the danger posed by collision-debris to nuclear-powered satellites will increase the likelihood of a nuclear accident in space.   The chief of Russia's Mission Control said in mid-February 2009 that debris from the Iridium 33-Cosmos 2251 satellite collision (in February 2009) will 'threaten numerous satellites.'  

Cold-War era satellites, although they 'were designed so that their nuclear fuel would survive a launch pad explosion relatively intact, all are vulnerable to breakup if involved in a sufficiently high-energy collision.'  (Orbital Debris - A Technical Assessment, National Research Council, 1995).  There is disagreement over what will happen to the orbits of the debris resulting from a collision with these satellites.   Scientists quoted by the mainstream press say that the radioactive materials would not fall to Earth.   One over-quoted Russian space expert said in February 2009 that in the event of such an accident 'radioactive fallout would pose no threat to Earth.'   The National Academy Press's Orbital Debris - A Technical Assessment, however, notes that 'Radioactive fragments...might reenter the atmosphere sooner than they would have if the spacecraft had remained intact.  These small fragments would burn up in the atmosphere, potentially resulting in a slight increase in the background health risk.' (p.91)  This is what happened with Transit-5BN-3, for example, which added to the world burden of plutonium (all isotopes of radioactive plutonium) from atmospheric nuclear testing by a staggering four percent

The potential of a nuclear-satellite catastrophe was succinctly summarized in the February 2009 article 'The Problem of Space Junk' by RIA Novosti: 'The lurking threat of both Russian and American nuclear satellites is that, should they fall apart upon collision with space debris, vast expanses of near-Earth space would be contaminated. Additionally, if some of the fragments had a velocity after collision and destruction that was below orbital speed, they would fall out of orbit and pollute some parts of the Earth’s surface. In the worst-case scenario, the atmosphere could be heavily contaminated.'  

These nuclear-powered satellite (NPS) dangers and worst-case scenarios are not new knowledge.  They have been known for decades.  Renowned physicist Ernest Sternglass editorialized about these dangers in the Boston Globe on February 19, 1978, in his piece 'Nuclear Satellites: Government secrecy hides the potential for real disaster,' which was written mere months after the Cosmos 954 crash.  His piece captured the resulting global fears incited by the accident and also described the real potentialities of a nuclear-satellite crash (including one potentiality rarely alluded to: a nuclear explosion on Earth).  

Sternglass wrote:

'The fear that had so obsessed the US skywatchers was simple: What would happen if the nuclear-powered satellite smashed into Chicago, Denver or Los Angeles?  Loaded with some 100 pounds of highly enriched uranium, there was no certainty that the on-board reactor’s failsafe design would prevent it from exploding on impact as an atomic bomb.  Explosions aside, the consequences could still have been devastating had the reactor not disintegrated in the atmosphere.  Intense gamma radiation from such fission products as Cesium 137 could have produced lethal doses within hours.  Air, water and farming areas would have been contaminated...  Because the potential from a major disaster was too frightening for public discussion, and because it might help to turn the people of the world against all forms of nuclear energy, both the US government and the Soviets decided to keep the story quiet.  If neither an explosion nor widespread human contamination occurred, they gambled, public hysteria and alarm could be avoided and the whole matter passed over lightly.'

Government officials, it turned out, made a bad bet.  Sternglass continues in his editorial about the 'sizeable quantities of radioactive debris' littered from Cosmos 954 over Canada's environment (about 83 Curies of Strontium fell near Great Slave Lake in Canada when Cosmos 954's debris scattered over an area of 160,000 square meters).  He also states, concerning Cosmos 954's breakup, that 'as the uranium and fission products did vaporize into the atmosphere they were transformed into the finely divided form of insoluble oxides, well known to be the most hazardous chemical form for the production of lung cancer.'

How much more radioactive material (destined to become toxic debris on Earth) is circling above us 'up there'?  The collective 'nuclear mine field' in space comprises hundreds of kilograms of highly-enriched uranium fuel and various fission byproducts such as Cesium-137 and Strontium-90.    This 'nuclear mine field' orbiting above the Earth also includes tens of pounds of radiotoxic Plutonium-238 (and Polonium-210) in various RTG-powered satellites.  Since Plutonium-238, which is highly dangerous to health when inhaled or ingested, has a half-life of about 90 years, RTG fuel cores in U.S. orbiting satellites still have about three-quarters of their original quantities of plutonium intact.   

Conclusion: Nuclear disaster awaits

One thing is certain, the era of nuclear accidents in space and the resulting fallout coming to 'Earthlings' is far from over.   Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, and every other location on Earth is a target.  U.S. and other governments' space agencies have absolutely no plans to cease and desist deploying nuclear-powered spacecraft for space exploratory missions (or deploying "Space Guard" [NASA] nuclear weapons to blast apart big asteroids).  This is despite pleas from environmental groups, United Nations efforts and the international space agencies' (poor) combined track record of accidents that have led to significant increases of radiological exposure to world populations and ecologies.  In the mid-1990s, European scientists made a breakthrough with high performance silicon solar-cells that could replace nuclear power sources in deep-space missions. Carla Signorini, a physicist with the European Space Agency, told a Florida newspaper in 1995 that "If given the money to do the work, within five years [ESA] could have solar cells ready to power a space mission to Saturn." Yet, NASA and the DOE have turned their heads from any alternative power source that might prevent catastrophe on Earth.   

This persistent reliance on nuclear sources for space missions begs the question: What is behind this adherence, this addiction, to plutonium for space nuclear power?  The people behind Project Censored wrote in their book 'Censored 1999':

'NASA insists on plutonium over solar power because of pressure from the manufacturer of the plutonium systems, formerly General Electric, now Lockheed Martin, the national nuclear laboratories and the U.S. Department of Energy - and there is a military connection. That connection is the desire for space-based weapons that will require high power available in nuclear power.'  

In early August 2009, the U.S. House and Senate cut funding for the DOE to restart production of plutonium-238 (Pu-238) because the DOE program proposal was 'poorly defined and lacks an overall mission justification as well as a credible project cost estimate.' NASA should use this opportunity to pursue ideas for exclusively-alternative, non-nuclear, power sources.

NASA and the Department of Energy seemingly don't want to apply the lessons learned of their past mistakes to their plans for the future.  The health consequences caused by fallout from nuclear rocket testing in Nevada and atmospheric (including high altitude) and underground nuclear testing by the DOE (and its predecessor) are largely unstudied.  Federal health agencies have done everything in their power to slow down or stop health studies and withhold their findings ever since they found out in the 1980s that tens of thousands of cases of thyroid cancer and untold incidences of other diseases were caused by Nevada nuclear testing.   There's a huge disconnect between the nuclear aspirations of present-day scientists at NASA and DOE and the unjust reality, illuminated by findings in health physics over the past decade, that their predecessors (at the NASA and DOE) made innocent citizens worldwide into nuclear guinea-pigs.  

More reading: Past nuclear-powered space missions of U.S and Russia and Sunny with a Chance of Nuclear Reactor

ACTION STEP: Visit our action steps page, read our proposed Bill titled 'Ban Nuclear Power Beyond Earth Act,' and learn how you can help make this bill into law!

Cosmos 1402 'reentry footprint' map [thought to have released 1,000's or 10,000's of Curies)

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Idealist's public document archives: 1. 2.

U.S. NUCLEAR tests: 128 A + 899 U in NV,
1 A in NM, 10 U (in NM, CO, AK, MS, central NV),
100+ A, U in Pacific, 3 A in S. Atlantic
(A=aboveground; U=Underground)

'The greatest irony of our atmospheric nuclear testing program is that 
the only victims of U.S. nuclear arms since World War II have been our own people.' 
- Forgotten Guinea Pigs Report, 1980

In 1986, the U.S. Dept. of Energy used the cover of the Chernobyl fallout cloud over the United States to release huge amounts of radiation into the air from a failed underground Nevada nuclear test. It was called Mighty Oak.

learn more on our global fallout page

 

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