[ RadSafe ] The Plowshare program got a "bum rap"

Tue May 28 23:08:17 CDT 2013

Dear Sir,

Stop attacking here.
I am ignoring your comments and stop sending your emails to my personal
email.
I forgot more than you would ever know.

Dave.

On Tue, May 28, 2013 at 7:56 PM, David Lee <davidleesafe at gmail.com> wrote:

> Russians almost started blowing tranches to turn huge Siberian rivers from
> North to the South to supply Central Asian desserts.
> It was not nuclear issue what stopped it, it was something like rivers are
> so huge water body may effect on earth rotation??? doubtful, the second
> problem was to take water from the North then North becomes desserts.
>
> Nazi:
> 1. Story is Hitler was distrustful to the idea of nuclear (science) bomb,
> because it was associated with Jewish scientists. When, they finally
> started, concept was to make bomb in form of reactor going critical as one
> piece or may be it was Japanese concept? They were satellites, so they
> shared info anyway.
>
>
> On Tue, May 28, 2013 at 6:27 PM, tinyyoli <tinyyoli at aol.com> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> I was priveledged to work in the Plowshare program at LLNL. By far, per
>> unit
>> mass, nuclear exlopsives are the cheapest way of excavating and/or moving
>> earth for costruction of navigable canals, highways, etc. Contained
>> underground
>> applications included freeing hyrocarbon resources, and storage of gasses
>> and
>> liquids, including wastes from nuclear power plants. There was much
>> excellent
>> science done in the program which, for security reasons cannot be
>> discussed. Of
>> course, the big scare tactic used by program opponents was the potential
>> for
>> radiation exposure to the public. If it were possible to reveal, it would
>> be
>> surprising how low public exposure levels would have been. Of course,
>> from a
>> politiical standpoint, ANY IS TOO MUCH. And so, the program died an
>> untimely
>> death.
>> Too bad----I believe we missed a good bet
>> Jerry Cohen
>>
>> With regards to the  Nazi nuclear weapons program, the best book I've
>> read on
>> the subject is "Heisenberg's War" - this went a long ways towards
>> convincing me
>> that the Nazis (including Hitler) were avidly pursuing nuclear weapons
>> and that
>> Heisenberg and other scientists helped delay matters because of their
>> concerns.
>>
>> With regards to the Plowshares Program, it's easy to scoff today - and
>> some of
>> the schemes certainly seem nutty with the benefit of hindsight. But at a
>> time
>> when nuclear weapons were viewed as being really big explosives (and
>> lacked the
>> emotional and political overtones of today) such plans seemed reasonable
>> - a lot
>> of people wanted desperately for something good to come from devices that
>> made
>> such horrible weapons. But as we learned more - and as we learned more
>> about the
>> health and environmental effects of the things - everyone figured out
>> that the
>> cost might be too high.
>>
>> I'm assuming that the "implanting plutonium into patients' hearts" refers
>> to
>> plutonium-powered pacemakers - another idea that seemed to be reasonable
>> at the
>> time since it meant that the rudimentary pacemakers of the day wouldn't
>> need
>> additional surgery to replace batteries.
>>
>> To me the question isn't about the soundness (or stupidity) of this work
>> as we
>> see it today so much as the intent of those proposing the projects in
>> light of
>> what they knew at the time. In the Plowshares Program and the
>> plutonium-powered
>> pacemakers I see programs that were well-intentioned based on what we
>> knew at
>> the time - I guess we could call them "noble blunders."
>>
>>
>> And then there are plenty of other things that are just boneheaded....
>>
>> Andy
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu
>> [mailto:radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu] On Behalf Of Roger Helbig
>> Sent: Saturday, May 25, 2013 4:44 AM
>> To: RADSAFE
>> Subject: [ RadSafe ] Fwd: [New post] New Book: A Short History of
>> NuclearFolly
>>
>> I really doubt that Nazi scientists knew how to and had the capability to
>> make an atomic weapon but "chose" not to.  I wonder what other fiction
>> that
>> Herzog might have buried in this book.  Has anyone had the opportunity to
>> read it?
>>
>> Roger Helbig
>>
>> (see last line of the following news release)
>>
>> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>> From: nuclear-news <comment-reply at wordpress.com>
>> Date: Sat, May 25, 2013 at 12:53 AM
>> Subject: [New post] New Book: A Short History of Nuclear Folly
>>   Christina MacPherson posted: "A Short History of Nuclear
>> Folly [Hardcover]
>>
>> http://www.amazon.com/A-Short-History-Nuclear-Folly/dp/1612191738/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1369261455&sr=8-1&keywords=short+history+of+nuclear+folly
>>
>> Release
>> date: April 30, 2013 In the spirit of Dr."
>>       New post on *nuclear-news*
>> <http://nuclear-news.net/author/christinamacpherson/>  New Book: A Short
>> History of Nuclear
>> Folly<
>> http://nuclear-news.net/2013/05/25/new-book-a-short-history-of-nuclear-folly/
>> >
>>
>> by
>> Christina MacPherson <http://nuclear-news.net/author/christinamacpherson/
>> >
>>
>> *<
>> http://antinuclearinfo.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/book-nuclear-folly.gif
>> >A
>> Short History of Nuclear Folly [Hardcover]
>>
>> http://www.amazon.com/A-Short-History-Nuclear-Folly/dp/1612191738/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1369261455&sr=8-1&keywords=short+history+of+nuclear+folly
>>
>>   *Release date: April 30, 2013
>> *In the spirit of Dr. Strangelove and The Atomic Café, a blackly sardonic
>> people's history of atomic blunders and near-misses revealing the
>> hushed-up
>> and forgotten episodes in which the great powers gambled with
>> catastrophe* Rudolph
>> Herzog, the acclaimed author of *Dead Funny*, presents a devastating
>> account of history's most irresponsible uses of nuclear technology. From
>> the rarely-discussed nightmare of "Broken Arrows" (40 nuclear weapons lost
>> during the Cold War) to "Operation Plowshare" (a proposal to use nuclear
>> bombs for large engineering projects, such as a the construction of a
>> second Panama Canal using 300 H-Bombs), Herzog focuses in on
>> long-forgotten
>> nuclear projects that nearly led to disaster.
>>
>> In an unprecedented people's history, Herzog digs deep into archives,
>> interviews nuclear scientists, and collects dozens of rare photos. He
>> explores the "accidental" drop of a Nagasaki-type bomb on a train
>> conductor's home, the implanting of plutonium into patients' hearts, and
>> the invention of wild tactical nukes, including weapons designed to kill
>> enemy astronauts.
>>
>> Told in a riveting narrative voice, Herzog-the son of filmmaker Werner
>> Herzog-also draws on childhood memories of the final period of the Cold
>> War
>> in Germany, the country once seen as the nuclear battleground for NATO and
>> the Warsaw Pact countries, and discusses evidence that Nazi scientists
>> knew
>> how to make atomic weaponry . . . and chose not to.
>>   *Christina MacPherson<
>> http://nuclear-news.net/author/christinamacpherson/>
>> * | May 25, 2013 at 7:52 am | Categories: resources -
>> print<http://nuclear-news.net/?cat=12949297>,
>> Resources -audiovicual <http://nuclear-news.net/?cat=39132860> | URL:
>> http://wp.me/phgse-d9I
>>
>>                   Comment
>>
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>>
>>
>>
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>> ________________________________
>>
>> From: "KARAM, PHILIP" <ANDREW.KARAM at nypd.org>
>> To: The International Radiation Protection (Health Physics) MailingList
>> <radsafe at health.phys.iit.edu>
>> Sent: Tue, May 28, 2013 5:23:15 AM
>> Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] Fwd: [New post] New Book: A Short History of
>> NuclearFolly
>> _______________________________________________
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>> Before posting a message to RadSafe be sure to have read and understood
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>
>