Xref: utzoo sci.space:4469 sci.space.shuttle:505
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From: fiddler%concertina@Sun.COM (Steve Hix)
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.space.shuttle
Subject: Re: Payload of shuttle flight directly after last Challenger.
Keywords: Gak, you know. The next flight.
Message-ID: <40767@sun.uucp>
Date: 2 Feb 88 19:45:12 GMT
References: <347@flatline.UUCP>
Sender: news@sun.uucp
Lines: 23

In article <347@flatline.UUCP>, erict@flatline.UUCP (eric townsend) writes:
> 
> According to activist and musician Jello Biafra, the next flight of the
> shuttle was to carring a payload of 46 pounds of *plutonium*.
> 
> 2. If so, I thought there was a law or treaty or something that we're
>    involved with that prohibits the launching of radioactive material
>    into space; and that this treaty was the reason we don't put nuclear
>    reactors into space.

There are any number of satellites zooming overhead with radioactive
power components.  Well, not *that* many, but several with very
large power requirements, such as the Soviet RORSATs, which are
radar platforms for oceanic surveys...which is another way of saying
ones that look for ships and shallow-running subs.  The radars on
board need lots of power and solar cells aren't quite up to it.

The treaty you're thinking of bans weapons of mass destruction
from space, not the same thing as a power plant, exactly.  The main
drawback with these RORSATs and other nuclear-powered birds is that
sometimes they came down in places like Canada.

	seh