Xref: utzoo sci.space:4491 sci.space.shuttle:514
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!steinmetz!ge-dab!codas!killer!elg
From: elg@killer.UUCP (Eric Green)
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.space.shuttle
Subject: Re: Payload of shuttle flight directly after last Challenger.
Message-ID: <3212@killer.UUCP>
Date: 4 Feb 88 01:08:10 GMT
References: <347@flatline.UUCP>
Organization: Bayou Telecommunications
Lines: 20

in article <347@flatline.UUCP>, erict@flatline.UUCP (eric townsend) says:
> 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 is a treaty banning nuclear WEAPONS in space. But there is no treaty
banning nuclear REACTORS in space. Remember that Russian satellite that broke
up over Canada a few years back, spewing low-level radiation over a wide
swath? It was powered by a nuclear reactor....

Your friend the nut case might have been thinking about the SDI payload that
was recently sent up on a Delta(?) rocket... it was originally scheduled for
the shuttle, back when the shuttle was planned to fly, well, now.

--
Eric Lee Green  elg@usl.CSNET     Asimov Cocktail,n., A verbal bomb
{cbosgd,ihnp4}!killer!elg              detonated by the mention of any
Snail Mail P.O. Box 92191              subject, resulting in an explosion
Lafayette, LA 70509                    of at least 5,000 words.