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From: kwan@smeagol.UUCP (Richard Kwan)
Newsgroups: net.space
Subject: Re: "zillion fatal doses of Plutonium"
Message-ID: <622@smeagol.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 4-Mar-86 16:43:01 EST
Article-I.D.: smeagol.622
Posted: Tue Mar  4 16:43:01 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 7-Mar-86 06:45:10 EST
References: <860225-113525-3597@Xerox> <12042@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <522@oliven.UUCP>
Organization: Spacecraft Data Systems, JPL, Pasadena, CA
Lines: 48

> >    -- David desJardins
> > ...  Talking about killing several thousand people is absurd,
> > but I think NASA should at least consider the probable effects of such an
> > accident...
> 
> Do you suggest they haven't?  
> ...  *I* wouldn't send a volatile substance 
> (especially something as gnarly as Plutonium) up without encasing it in some 
> pretty strong stuff -- and I doubt that NASA (even their ignorant beaurocrats) 
> would be so naive as to *not* at least acknowledge a worst case scenario in
> their designs.  They may make mistakes, but they're not stupid.
> 
> Any JPL designers out there to affirm or nay-say?
> 
> Barb

    Well, I'm not really a designer.  At least, not for a spacecraft.

    Greg Earle and I have tried to speak to this matter in earlier
messages, though now we wonder if they got out.  I was at an "all hands"
briefing concerning Galileo a while back.  As of that meeting, the
prevailing opinion was that the plutonium WOULD NOT have leaked if
Galileo were in the explosion.  HOWEVER, after the primary investigation
is over, people here at JPL want to get their hands on the available
data and verify that.  What did they design for?  I have no idea.
(sigh... I'm not even sure who to ask.)

    But, ya gotta remember, any scenarios projected in the past have
strictly been scenarios.

    And Barb, I tend to agree that the engineers here are not stupid.
Some are a little weird... (please, JPLers, no flames :-)  {-: oh, yeah;
I can attest, each one of them is unique.  :-}

DISCLAIMER: I don't work on Galileo; I work on Magellan (Venus Radar
Mapper) which will fly economy class by using Galileo spare parts.
But that doesn't matter.  I don't know enough to speak authoritatively
on either anyway.


-- 
		Rick Kwan
		JPL Spacecraft Data Systems
		sdcrdcf!smeagol!kwan (UUCP)
		ia-sun2!smeagol!kwan@csvax.caltech.EDU (ARPA)
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"...jumpin' into hyperspace ain't like dustin' crops, boy."  H. Solo
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