Word: reactor
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...satellite had been powered by a nuclear reactor with more than 100 pounds of enriched uranium in its core. Emergency response crews searching the area found 3000 bits of enriched uranium and a few pounds of radioactive metal. If the satellite had fallen near any populated area, people could have died...
...Cosmos 1402 disintegrated upon returning to earth. Some of its radiation still remains in the atmosphere. And just a few months ago, Cosmos 1900, a satellite also containing more than 100 pounds of enriched uranium 235, burned up in the upper atmosphere. Luckily, the satellite jettisoned its nuclear reactor, which is still floating in space, at a higher, longer-lived orbit...
...Department of Energy contracted a study into the possible dangers of sending a nuclear reactor into orbit. Steven Aftergood, who heads the Committee to Bridge the Gap, a public interest group that concentrates on nuclear policy issues, knew that there was a joint DOE-SDI-NASA project to develop the SP-100, a space-based nuclear reactor. The SP-100 is in its final design stages, and a prototype is to be constructed in the next few years; deployment is tentatively scheduled for the mid- or late-1990s. Aftergood requested the DOE study through the Freedom of Information...
...study, "Safety Assessment for Space Reactors," included a discussion of what would happen if a one-megawatt thermal nuclear reactor was to reenter the atmosphere immediately after 10 years of continuous output. The report read: "although not specifically calculated, the number of fatalities for reentry at time of shutdown or during operation would be 30,000-50,000." Translated from military-industrial- speak, this means that if the worst case scenario occurs, 30-50,000 people would be killed worldwide...
Critics are quick to point out that no nuclear reactor, either water-cooled or gas-cooled, is totally safe as long as it produces radioactive waste. The U.S. alone has generated thousands of metric tons of "hot" debris, including enough spent fuel to cover a football field to a height of three feet. Said Sir Crispin Tickell, British Permanent Representative to the United Nations: "The fact that every year there is waste being produced that will take the next three ice ages and beyond to become harmless is something that has deeply impressed the imagination...