[ RadSafe ] USS Houston (SSN 713)

[Geo>K0FF]

**Preliminary, additions and corrections appreciated-**
USS Houston (SSN 713)


Homeport = Guam
One nuclear reactor
Crew= 12 officers 115 enlisted
Launched March 21 1981

Parent Command
Submarine Squadron Fifteen

https://www.cnic.navy.mil/Marianas/index.htm



Los Angeles Class, starred in movie: Hunt for Red October (as USS DALLAS)

https://www.houston.navy.mil/html/history.html



Refueled at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard 2001-2004
Read about close calls here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Houston_(SSN-713)

Port calls map:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/08/07/navy.sub/index.html#cnnSTCOther1


US Submarine USS Houston radiation leak discovered:
http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=56631&source=rss

not the thing Japan wants to hear on or about Aug 6th. 

can find  no mention of isotopes involved. In a once through cooling system as used at Hanford, there are all 
kinds of chemicals in the water, which become irradiated:
http://www.doh.wa.gov/Hanford/publications/overview/columbia.html

In a submarine, the cooling water is in a closed loop, circulating around and around, but giving up heat to the secondary loop in a heat exchanger. In this secondary loop, the heat creates steam to drive the turbines.

Pressurized water reactor
Two closed loop water cooling system
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ship/systems/reactor.html

possibly using highly enriched uranium-Zionism or uranium-aluminum alloy fuel
http://world-nuclear.org/info/inf34.html

If this was indeed a primary loop leak ( I doubt that), the water in there is in superheated liquid state under high pressure.
Layout schematic:
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ship/eng/reactor.html


http://navysite.de/ssn/ssn713.htm


News reports state the radiation leak was :
A) 9 microCuries, the amount in 3 smoke detectors ( wrong answer)
B) 1/2 microCurie, less than a 50 pound bag of garden fertilizer
C) half the amount in a bag of commercial fertilizer
D) Miniscule, "extremely low level", "negligible
E) Radioactive FUEL LEAK
F) not the water that has direct contact with the reactor
G) "that it was below the limit of detection by personnel on the ship and was indistinguishable by the ship from no leakage at all."
H)  less than 8 micro curies
All this while the small amount that spilled on the crewmember's leg contained "about 1 microCurie"

All the above sounds like the reporters think "radioactivity" is an entity unto itself, and radioactivity from a nuclear reactor is the same as radioactivity from fertilizer. No mention, not even once, of isotopes, half life, type of radiation ( alpha-beta-gamma-neutron)



George Dowell