Word: plutonium
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...doubt the scientific value of the Galileo flight. Nonetheless, a sharp controversy has dogged the mission. At issue is the space probe's power source: two radioisotope thermoelectric generators that are fueled by almost 50 lbs. of highly radioactive plutonium 238. Antinuclear groups, led by the Florida Coalition for Peace and Justice and the Washington-based Christic Institute, have claimed that the generators are unsafe. Their view is shared by Richard Cuddihy, an analyst with the Inhalation Toxicology Research Center in Albuquerque and the lone dissenter on the federal interagency panel that recommended a go-ahead for the Galileo program...
...attention until the Challenger tragedy dramatized the risks of space launches. The space agency admits that there have been three accidents involving RTG- powered vehicles. The most significant was in 1964, when a satellite launched by the Air Force burned up over the Pacific, tripling the amount of radioactive plutonium 238 in the environment. It is not clear what health effects that might have had. The generators were then redesigned, and in two subsequent accidents in which spacecraft broke apart, no radioactivity is known to have escaped...
...Hanford, Wash., plutonium finishing plant, managers turned off radiation alarms because high winds sometimes set them...
Past investigations of the Rocky Flats nuclear-weapons plant near Denver have revealed shabby management, freaky accidents and dangerous pollution, and 75 FBI agents are currently there looking for proof of fraud in the disposal and incineration of plutonium-laden wastes. But what has environmental officials most puzzled is something they never expected to find even at trouble-prone Rocky Flats: traces of radioactive strontium and cesium that a nuclear chain reaction could produce -- even though there is no nuclear reactor at the site. The Environmental Protection Agency has demanded a study to determine how the mysterious isotopes...
...receive a call in your hotel room telling you that Iraqi terrorists have hijacked a plane carrying plutonium from France to Japan, and that your presence at the United Nations is urgently needed...