|
Authored by: SilverWave on Thursday, April 11 2013 @ 01:23 PM EDT |
Heh
Said launches aren’t without hazards, albeit with risks that
can be mitigated and managed. One of the most notorious
space-related nuclear accidents occurred early in the U.S.
space program with the loss of an RTG-equipped Transit-5BN-3
satellite off of the coast of Madagascar shortly after
launch in 1964. And when Apollo 13 had to abort and return
to Earth, the astronauts were directed to ditch the Aquarius
Landing Module along with its nuclear-powered science
experiments meant for the surface of the Moon in the Pacific
Ocean near the island of Fiji. (They don’t tell you that in
the movie) One wonders if it would be cost effective to
“resurrect” this RTG from the ocean floor for a future space
mission. On previous nuclear-equipped launches such as New
Horizons, NASA placed the chance of a “launch accident that
could release plutonium” at 350-to-1 against Even then, the
shielded RTG is “over-engineered” to survive an explosion
and impact with the water.
Read more: http://www.universetoday.com/100875/u-s-to-
restart-plutonium-production-for-deep-space-
exploration/#ixzz2QB0ZCRdn
---
RMS: The 4 Freedoms
0 run the program for any purpose
1 study the source code and change it
2 make copies and distribute them
3 publish modified versions
[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
|
|
|
|
|