Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 4.3bsd-beta 6/6/85; site ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!ucbvax!space From: Slocum.CSCDA@HI-MULTICS.ARPA (Brett Slocum) Newsgroups: net.space Subject: Re: "zillion fatal doses of Plutonium" Message-ID: <860227053937.176499@HI-MULTICS.ARPA> Date: Thu, 27-Feb-86 00:39:00 EST Article-I.D.: HI-MULTI.860227053937.176499 Posted: Thu Feb 27 00:39:00 1986 Date-Received: Fri, 28-Feb-86 22:01:17 EST Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Organization: The ARPA Internet Lines: 33 I'm sorry but this is not "non-science nonsense". A previous message addressed the dispersal question. I remember hearing during the news coverage that the shuttle blew up with a force of about a kiloton. Add whatever you want for the Centaur Upper Stage. Certainly that should be ample to pulverize a significant portion of the 43 pounds. (BTW, Ulysses had about 25 pounds too.) Give me a break, the biggest piece to survive was a 12 foot piece of the airframe, (as I recall). > If that was true, the the entire state of Nevada's population would be > dead by now from the A-Bomb tests of the 50's and 60's. There is a BIG difference between low altitude atmospheric testing and 10 miles up. The winds at that level or anywhere in between are significant. Particles released at this level could remain airborne for a long time, perhaps circumnavigate the globe. In the shuttle disaster, the big pieces did come down mostly in the ocean over a ten mile radius. Who knows where the little pieces came down, or whether they even have come down yet. The population density within a 50 mile radius of Cape Canaveral (or 10 miles downrange, even over the ocean) is an awful lot higher than the Nevada Test Range. Also, I recall that there is a higher than average cancer rate in Nevada. I thought I was being pretty conservative by saying "several thousand, perhaps several hundred thousand". None of this adds up to conclusive proof of anything (I never intended to present a formal scientific proof), but by that same reasoning, the tobacco companies still insist that there is no conclusive proof that smoking tobacco causes lung cancer. Brett Slocum