New Horizons RTG ramble

It just occurred to me that I never heard so much as a peep out
of the anti-nuclear loonies about the RTG's carried aboard New
Horizons. Nothing on TV, nothing on the Net - absolutely nada. I
wonder what got up their noses so much about Galileo and Ulysses that
didn't with THIS particular launch?

"Guy Parry" wrote in message
...
It just occurred to me that I never heard so much as a peep out
of the anti-nuclear loonies about the RTG's carried aboard New
Horizons. Nothing on TV, nothing on the Net - absolutely nada. I
wonder what got up their noses so much about Galileo and Ulysses that
didn't with THIS particular launch?

Oh there were a few protesters.

But I suspect most realized when the world didn't end after Galileo and
Ulysses and Cassini that it wouldn't end this time. And the press figured
it wasn't much of a news event, so that led to less people coming out also.

In article ,
Guy Parry wrote:
It just occurred to me that I never heard so much as a peep out
of the anti-nuclear loonies about the RTG's carried aboard New
Horizons. Nothing on TV, nothing on the Net - absolutely nada. I
wonder what got up their noses so much about Galileo and Ulysses that
didn't with THIS particular launch?

The hard-core loonies were still excited about it, but their base of
public support has been dwindling steadily. For Galileo and Ulysses,
there was significant commotion about it. For Cassini, one or two
small, half-hearted protests. Now, almost nothing. They've cried wolf
too many times.
--
spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer
mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. |

On Wed, 1 Feb 2006 04:04:37 GMT, (Henry Spencer)
wrote:

The hard-core loonies were still excited about it, but their base of
public support has been dwindling steadily. For Galileo and Ulysses,
there was significant commotion about it. For Cassini, one or two
small, half-hearted protests. Now, almost nothing. They've cried wolf
too many times.

....And once was two times too many to begin with.

OM
--
]=====================================[
] OMBlog - http://www.io.com/~o_m/omworld [
] Let's face it: Sometimes you *need* [
] an obnoxious opinion in your day! [
]=====================================[

(Henry Spencer) wrote:

In article ,
Guy Parry wrote:
It just occurred to me that I never heard so much as a peep out
of the anti-nuclear loonies about the RTG's carried aboard New
Horizons. Nothing on TV, nothing on the Net - absolutely nada. I
wonder what got up their noses so much about Galileo and Ulysses that
didn't with THIS particular launch?

The hard-core loonies were still excited about it, but their base of
public support has been dwindling steadily.

Given the lack of a noticeable change in anti-nuclear sentiment, I
doubt it.

For Galileo and Ulysses, there was significant commotion about it. For
Cassini, one or two small, half-hearted protests. Now, almost nothing.
They've cried wolf too many times.

Given that New Horizons flew pretty much under the public radar (not
being nearly as well known as Galileo and Ulysses) and the vast
distractions currently occupying that end of the lunatic fringe...

Not to mention that I don't recall the protests around Cassini as
being half-hearted. Plus there were two episode of protest, one
prelaunch and another during the flyby.

I'd not draw too confident a line through a single data point.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL

In message , Guy Parry
writes
It just occurred to me that I never heard so much as a peep out
of the anti-nuclear loonies about the RTG's carried aboard New
Horizons. Nothing on TV, nothing on the Net - absolutely nada. I
wonder what got up their noses so much about Galileo and Ulysses that
didn't with THIS particular launch?

Didn't I see somewhere that there were about 30 protesters at the
launch? (Looking it up, I did - probably here
http://www.newscientistspace.com/article.ns?id=dn8560)
Apparently 800 people protested over Cassini. Though the real nutters
were still protesting when it had problems at Jupiter - they thought it
might come back ;-)

"Jonathan Silverlight" wrote
in message ...
In message , Guy Parry
writes
It just occurred to me that I never heard so much as a peep out
of the anti-nuclear loonies about the RTG's carried aboard New
Horizons. Nothing on TV, nothing on the Net - absolutely nada. I
wonder what got up their noses so much about Galileo and Ulysses that
didn't with THIS particular launch?

Didn't I see somewhere that there were about 30 protesters at the launch?
(Looking it up, I did - probably here
http://www.newscientistspace.com/article.ns?id=dn8560)
Apparently 800 people protested over Cassini. Though the real nutters were
still protesting when it had problems at Jupiter - they thought it might
come back ;-)



Ok, they are protesting because of the danger to the people if one of
those rockets explode. So how bad would it get if say New Horizons exploded
and the container that held the plutonium or whatever it was carrying was
damaged and released it's contents? How many people would get contaminated?
And how would they be effected? Would they die instantly? Would they just
get an increase in the risk of cancer? Something in between? Would it be a
definite danger to the people in Orlando?

Ok, they are protesting because of the danger to the people if one of
those rockets explode. So how bad would it get if say New Horizons exploded
and the container that held the plutonium or whatever it was carrying was
damaged and released it's contents? How many people would get contaminated?
And how would they be effected? Would they die instantly? Would they just
get an increase in the risk of cancer? Something in between? Would it be a
definite danger to the people in Orlando?


Divers would head out into the Atlantic, recover the RTG and sent it
away for reprocessing and possible re-use. At least that's what
happened the last time a rocket with an RTG on it exploded during
launch.

Worst case scenario the RTG falls on someone and kills them instantly.
These things are designed to withstand launch accidents.

Kelly McDonald

Kelly McDonald wrote:

Ok, they are protesting because of the danger to the people if one of
those rockets explode. So how bad would it get if say New Horizons exploded
and the container that held the plutonium or whatever it was carrying was
damaged and released it's contents? How many people would get contaminated?
And how would they be effected? Would they die instantly? Would they just
get an increase in the risk of cancer? Something in between? Would it be a
definite danger to the people in Orlando?


Divers would head out into the Atlantic, recover the RTG and sent it
away for reprocessing and possible re-use. At least that's what
happened the last time a rocket with an RTG on it exploded during
launch.

Worst case scenario the RTG falls on someone and kills them instantly.
These things are designed to withstand launch accidents.

The oft-repeated implication that the RTG could survive any launch
failure is simply wrong.

According to NASA's own safety study at:

"http://spacescience.nasa.gov/admin/pubs/plutoeis/NH-FEIS_Vol1.pdf"

There was a 0.4% predicted chance of radiological release during
the AV-010 launch. The worst case would have been if the rocket had
blown up on the pad just prior to launch. If that had happened there
would have been a *78%* chance of radiological release. Next worst
would have been If the rocket did a "Full Stack Intact Impact", when
there would have been a 25% chance of radiological release. The pad
impact events would have resulted in big fires that could have resulted

in a "partial vaporization of PuO2" (see around page 119 for example).

If that had happened, cleanup could have taken months or years and
cost something like $1 billion per square mile of contaminated zone
downwind of the pad. (On New Horizons launch day, BTW, the VAB
with all of NASA's space shuttle infrastructure, ended up being
directly
downwind from the New Horizons launch pad. Think about that for a
moment).

The odds of release were very low, but they were not zero. The Cape
has seen pad explosions before. Search for the AC-5 launch video to
see a vivid example of the "worst case".

- Ed Kyle

"Ed Kyle" wrote in message
oups.com...
Kelly McDonald wrote:

Ok, they are protesting because of the danger to the people if one
of
those rockets explode. So how bad would it get if say New Horizons
exploded
and the container that held the plutonium or whatever it was carrying
was
damaged and released it's contents? How many people would get
contaminated?
And how would they be effected? Would they die instantly? Would they
just
get an increase in the risk of cancer? Something in between? Would it
be a
definite danger to the people in Orlando?


Divers would head out into the Atlantic, recover the RTG and sent it
away for reprocessing and possible re-use. At least that's what
happened the last time a rocket with an RTG on it exploded during
launch.

Worst case scenario the RTG falls on someone and kills them instantly.
These things are designed to withstand launch accidents.

The oft-repeated implication that the RTG could survive any launch
failure is simply wrong.

According to NASA's own safety study at:

"http://spacescience.nasa.gov/admin/pubs/plutoeis/NH-FEIS_Vol1.pdf"

There was a 0.4% predicted chance of radiological release during
the AV-010 launch. The worst case would have been if the rocket had
blown up on the pad just prior to launch. If that had happened there
would have been a *78%* chance of radiological release. Next worst
would have been If the rocket did a "Full Stack Intact Impact", when
there would have been a 25% chance of radiological release. The pad
impact events would have resulted in big fires that could have resulted

in a "partial vaporization of PuO2" (see around page 119 for example).

If that had happened, cleanup could have taken months or years and
cost something like $1 billion per square mile of contaminated zone
downwind of the pad. (On New Horizons launch day, BTW, the VAB
with all of NASA's space shuttle infrastructure, ended up being
directly
downwind from the New Horizons launch pad. Think about that for a
moment).

The odds of release were very low, but they were not zero. The Cape
has seen pad explosions before. Search for the AC-5 launch video to
see a vivid example of the "worst case".



But what kind of physical effect would there be on the people if such an
accident happened?