Re: Russian space probe hysteria!

[jdelahunt@cc.colorado.edu (John DeLaHunt)]

>Hysteria seems to be worldwide ...  More "deadly" plutonium 
>concerns... 

To be fair, Pu-238 is _still_ one of the most dangerous elements known, in
the right circumstances -- such as inhalation.  Right?

>      ``There is enough plutonium there for a massive
>contamination of an entire aquatic ecosystem,'' Chilean
>environmental leader Manuel Baquedano said.

I wonder on what this statement is based.  Perhaps someone more
knowledgeable than me (in which group I include nearly everyone on this
list) could provide documentation of knowledge, or lack of knowledge, about
aquatic toxicity of dispersed plutonium.  It's my understanding that, in
human models, ingestion of Pu is by far less dangerous than inhalation.

>      Russian officials said the tiny batteries, each about the
>size of a roll of film, were designed to withstand great heat
>and great stress on impact. But Baquedano and other
>environmentalists said the water pressure at that depth could be
>too much for any manmade object to withstand.

I wonder if this Baquedano fellow reviewed the design of the penetrator
probes, which were designed to embed themselves into the martian landscape
at tremendous velocity...

>      ``We face the danger that our entire industrial and
>small-scale fishing stocks could be contaminated,'' biologist
>Bernado Reyes said at a news conference with Baquedano. ``The
>species there are those we Chileans nourish ourselves with.''

I found it interesting that Pu-238 batteries were used on the part of Apollo
13 that ashed itself during reentry, on a 1964 US satellite shot, and in a
1968 Nimbus B-1 mission, all without the outcry of today's "enlightened"
populace.

Anyone know what the plutonium spread from Nagasaki was?  How are the fish
populations recovering nearby?  Did they even notice?

The more people rant, the less creedence they get, it seems to me.

John

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