Word: space
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Although the military interest was paramount, the concern in both Washington and Ottawa over the hazards from runaway space vehicles was also genuine. At his press conference last week, President Carter said he would take up with Moscow his idea that nations using earth-orbiting nuclear-powered satellites should either agree to install "much more advanced safety precautions" or simply stop launching them...
...differences between the American and Soviet approaches to providing electrical power in space make an agreement unlikely. The U.S. has not launched a nuclear-powered vehicle since 1965. Instead, it relies on solar cells for electricity for all purposes except shots to the moon or toward other planets, where the sun's rays are too weak to be converted into sufficient power. In the 18 times in which the U.S. has sent nuclear power packs into space, it has used a much less dangerous method than the Russians...
...Space scientists are confident, moreover, that before future generations face the fall of these satellites, they will have achieved a means of either sending other vehicles up to retrieve the circling craft or of hurl ing them into even higher orbits...
...space experts contend that their nuclear power packages provide heavy protection against such disaster because they are encased in armor designed to survive both re-entry and impact with the earth. They can sometimes be recovered intact. And despite the tremendous interest in the fall of Cosmos 954, there have been at least six previous nuclear space accidents without known harm...
...harm to man so far seems negligible, the very fact that such nuclear space accidents occur is chilling. For all the talk of "fail-safe" systems, as man hurls more and more lethal nuclear power plants into space, the probability increases of further, and much more harmful, "space age difficulties...