Will NASA Ever Recover Apollo 13's Plutonium From the Ocean

An anonymous reader writes "'Houston, we've had a problem,' said astronaut Jack Swigert on April 13, 1970. But the problem wasn't as simple as three astronauts potentially trapped in the void of space, 200,000 miles from Earth. The catastrophic risk came from the SNAP-27 radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG), a small nuclear reactor that was going to be placed on the moon to power experiments, carrying Plutonium 238 in Apollo 13's lunar module. As luck would have it, NASA had experience losing RTGs – a navigation satellite failed to reach orbit in 1964 and scattered small amounts of plutonium over the Indian Ocean. The SNAP-27 had been engineered to make it back to Earth intact in such an incident. The plutonium, like the astronauts, apparently survived reentry and came to rest with what remained of the lunar module in the Tonga Trench south of Fiji, approximately 6-9 kilometers underwater (its exact location is unknown). Extensive monitoring of the atmosphere in the area showed that no radiation escaped."

Comments

No

[bsane]

6Km under the ocean is probably the safest place for it.

Re:No

[Oswald McWeany]

Not if the mermen militarise the plutonium and use it against the land people.

They're vicious SOBs down there.

Re:No

[Thud457]

6Km under the ocean is probably the safest place for it.

Putting it on the Moon would probably had been safer.

Re:No

[Oswald McWeany]

According to the Merman religion they get 17 sturgeons in the afterlife if the die whilst killing the land people.

Re:No

[Ukab the Great]

Plus it can be reworked into the plot of any Back To The Future reloads where Marty gets stuck in the 70's

Re:No

[Mitchell314]

And then it would have polluted the lunar wildlife. Should have been left in Utah, definitely much more barren there.

Re:No

[Andy Dodd]

No, a ROV that works at shallow depths is easy. One that will work with the pressures sustained at the depths this thing is lying at is a WHOLE other story.

For example, at these kinds of pressures, the epoxy will crush, which will crush the battery. Similarly, any cameras are likely to have their optics destroyed by pressure differentials unless specifically designed for deepwater operation.

Re:No

[0123456]

6Km under the ocean is probably the safest place for it.

Think of the fish-children!

Re:No

[EyelessFade]

What? And let it fall in the hands of the zombie Nazis?

Re:No

[uigrad_2000]

What? And let it fall in the hands of the zombie Nazis?

We all know that zombie Nazis only exist in Norway

Re:No

[gplus]

From TFA:
"The plutonium was in an oxide form about one-tenth of a millimeter in diameter contained in fuel capsule, which itself was inside a graphite and ceramic fuel cask." - Leonard Dudzinski, a NASA program executive.

Is this another example of a NASA guy who doesn't understand metric units, or is the plutonium RTG really just a sphere not much wider than a hair?

Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

Regardless of your complete misremembering of an article written by the highly esteemed author of an internet comic, something tells me that an RC plane motor is probably not sufficient to lift a lunar excursion module from 6km underwater.

Re:No

[compro01]

Don't you mean Sea Kittens?

Re:No

[Tsingi]

I heard that the son of Neptune would come back and bring all of the devout merpersons to the great ocean know as seaven while bringing death and destruction to all who are not devout worshipers of Neptune.

Re:No

[Z00L00K]

In the hands of some Mormons then...

Re:No

[Z00L00K]

I agree - and what they can do is to cover it with some additional material to make sure that it doesn't get far when it starts to leak.

Re:No

[Tsingi]

Regardless of your complete misremembering of an article written by the highly esteemed author of an internet comic, something tells me that an RC plane motor is probably not sufficient to lift a lunar excursion module from 6km underwater.

What if you used a counterweight?

(its nuke-you-ler)

Re:No

[cruff]

My guess is that the unit is made up of multiple pellets of that composition from which the heat of decay is used to generate electricity. The Curiosity rover is said to use 4 kg of Pu 238 to power it.

Re:No

[Volante3192]

I'm more worried about the Russian water tentacles. If you think creating tsunamis willy-nilly is bad, imagine radioactive tsunamis!

Re:No

[Rude Turnip]

That didn't keep the Decepticons down for long.

Re:No

[Stele]

I'd be more concerned about those Japanese tentacles. Much more.

Re:No

[identity0]

Oh but if the Undines from Yggdra Union could get a nuclear bomb, I'd totally welcome our new mermaid overlords.

Re:No

[Mikkeles]

I'd bet on YES. That way I break even or win. Betting on NO allows only break even or lose.

Re:No

[trum4n]

However, they do make decent movies....

Re:No

[CohibaVancouver]

They're vicious SOBs down there

*knew this was a one way ticket but you know i had to come*_______ *luv u wife*

(I know it's supposed to be in all caps, but the lame /. lameness filter won't let me quote properly.)

Re:No

[canajin56]

The fuel is divided into 151g pellets, 4 per iridium capsule, and those capsules are contained in a graphite and ceramic cask. A 151g pellet should have a total volume of 13 cubic centimeters assuming that they get pretty close to theoretical density when sintering them. That would be a sphere with diameter about 3cm, but they are cylindrical not spherical. About 4cm height by 1cm radius (200 times greater diameter than indicated). The fuel capsules have vents so that the alpha decay products (helium gas) don't rupture anything, so perhaps those are 0.1mm thick and he read the wrong number from the tech sheet. Still, the size of individual pellets doesn't matter as much as how many there are total (24).

Re:No

[Gilmoure]

Not to mention getting all that radiation out into space. Why can't Earthlings keep their pollution on Earth?

Re:No

[s13g3]

According to the Merman religion they get 17 sturgeons in the afterlife if the die whilst killing the land people.

Virgin sturgeon, at that.

Re:No

[Namlak]

No, a ROV that works at shallow depths is easy. One that will work with the pressures sustained at the depths this thing is lying at is a WHOLE other story.

For example, at these kinds of pressures, the epoxy will crush, which will crush the battery. Similarly, any cameras are likely to have their optics destroyed by pressure differentials unless specifically designed for deepwater operation.

The easy answer is to drown the internals of the devices to be used at depth. Obviously sea-water is salty and that would disrupt and ruin things in short order but any non-conductive and non-corrosive liquid should do the trick. Optics can be designed to account for the difference in refraction ratios, most electric motors can be used "drowned", especially brushless types.

Re:No

[mikael]

Nereus went to a depth of 10,000m. I'd say it was possible.

MythBusters did an experiment with MeatMan to see what would happen to a diver in an old-fashion diving suit with airhose. It wasn't pretty.

Re:No

[M8e]

You are safe as long as you keep away from the zombie nazi gold. But I don't know if they care about plutonium.

Re:No

[DigitalGoetz]

Like throwing a glass of water into the ocean.

Let there be no confusion... all those stars toss more radiation than our little toys.

Re:No

[mikael]

Shiver me brinicles! Who needs plutonium when you have the icy finger of death ?

Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

Only young schoolgirls have to worry about those.

Re:No

[The Great Pretender]

Are you sure? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space:_1999

Re:No

[Tomato42]

The easy answer is to drown the internals of the devices to be used at depth.

I'd call that "specifically designed for"... He didn't say "impossible".

Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

According to the Merman religion

I believe they prefer to be referred to as The Church of Jesus Pike of Latter-day Skates.

they get 17 sturgeons in the afterlife if the die whilst killing the land people.

Also if they are killed by the Mafia. Either way, they sleep with the fishes.

Re:No

[Andy Dodd]

I didn't say it was impossible - just that it was a LOT harder than the AC made it out to be. Nereus is NOT a hobbyist project - it was made by one of the top oceanographic research institutions on the planet, and if you look at it, is a hell of a lot more than an Arduino on the end of a fiber optic cable.

Re:No

[Namlak]

And I didn't disagree with him.

Re:No

[JoshuaZ]

The Deep Ones have more powerful weapons and under the terms of the Benthic treaty we're not allowed to recover equipment from the ocean floor without their permission. They'd be extremely unlikely to give permission after the Jennifer-Morgue fiasco.

Re:No

[bhcompy]

I dunno about no Undines, but I'd be worried about the Stormriders getting it. They already hate us on land enough

Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

It still wouldn't work: 'Six point twenty-one kilometers! Great Scott! It's can't be done Marty. It can't. I'm sure that in 1985, submersible robots capable of retrieving items from the ocean floor are available at every corner drugstore, but in 1975 they're a little hard to come by!"

I think we need a Back To The Future IV where Marty travels back from 2015 to 1985 and sets up a corporation that will invest in a small fruit company, dump the stock in late 2011, go back to 1985 again and use the profits to invest heavily in a South San Francisco biotech company whose focus will be redirected to Parkinson's research, thus ensuring the production of Back To The Future V. And somehow the head of the biotech firm becomes chairman of the fruit company in the process. This however creates a paradox, because the rejuvenation process that keeps Doc alive will never be invented because the biotech company is too busy working on Parkinson's research! This is heavy.

Re:No

[monkeyhybrid]

Wouldn't that just equalise the pressure inside the main ROV cavities to those outside? You'd still crush all the components within that can't be pumped full of high pressure liquid like electrical components, etc. Instead of the epoxy being crushed from the outside, it will now just be crushed from both the outside and inside.

Even if you could pressurize every single component within the ROV like that, you'd have to be able to vary that pressure to retain equillabrium on it's way back to sea level.

Re:No

[bryan1945]

Never watched Aqua Teen Hunger Force? You want those 2 pixelated morons to get a hold of that?
On the serious side, yeah, safer on the moon.

Re:No

[bryan1945]

Fool, they are also in France!
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081027/
(Oh, such a horrible, horrible movie)

Re:No

[camperdave]

I just watched the first episode, "Breakaway", last week.

Re:No

[Namlak]

Equal pressure on the inside and outside is effectively zero pressure. That's why you don't blow up like a balloon and pop when travelling from sea level to high altitude, yet your bag of Doritios might.

You don't need to pressurize the liquid on the inside, let the ambient pressure do the work. Off the top of my head, you'd only need something like a flexible diaphragm let the pressures equalize. Remember that liquids are virtually uncompressable so you you'd have very little displacement. The problem then becomes dealing with the parts that cannot be filled with liquid, such as batteries but now you're talking about much smaller structures and a hardened case may be more practical for them. Most electrical components don't have compressible space inside them that I can think of off the top of my head.

Speaking of pressure equalization and diaphragms, there's no reason you can't do this with air on the inside, you just have to have a large enough compression space for the air to compress into (i.e. an external air tank/bladder). So if the pressure at depth is 100 atmospheres, you'll need a sea-level compression space ~100 times the volume of space that your working equipment requires. Better make sure that air in there is very dry, though as there could be all sorts of effects due to water vapor condensing, etc.

Re:No

[brusk]

So that's why they attack people with pikes..

Re:No

[dotancohen]

6Km under the ocean is probably the safest place for it.

Putting it on the Moon would probably had been safer.

12 people have already walked on the moon. How many have walked on the ocean bottom?

Re:No

[jmichaelg]

6Km under the ocean is probably the safest place for it.

Putting it on the Moon would probably had been safer.

Safer for whom? The battery saved the astronaut's lives by providing power and heat after the command module failed. Had they dumped it on the moon, the astronauts wouldn't have survived the return trip.

Re:No

[Tsingi]

That was awesome.

Re:No

[ckaminski]

Planet earth tosses more radiation than we ever will.

Re:No

[Lyttek]

They could use it to power frickin lasers on the heads of sharks....

Re:No

[AmiMoJo]

Check out the original Japanese version of Godzilla. The monster was created by US underwater nuclear testing, which needless to say got cut from English language release.

Japan has always had a strong anti-nuclear movement because of those two tragedies, and now because of Fukushima. They keep flames from those events burning at various places around the country, and the first Godzilla movie was actually a fairly serious film. It was only later that special effects improved and the monster started looking silly.

Re:No

[AmiMoJo]

Well you say "walked" but their feet never actually touched the ground, only their space suits did. Similarly no-one has ever touched the deep ocean floor because they could not survive down there, but manned craft have dived to those depths.

As for nuclear material the potential for it to circulate on ocean currents is a concern, where as on the moon it is unlikely to ever go anywhere.

Re:No

[BitZtream]

You wouldn't use a brushless motor from an R/C car. You'd could probably do it fairly easy with the ones used in something like a Tesla Roadster though.

Nothing about RC technology is unique, it all came from somewhere else, typically the industrial world first, then they make it small.

Re:No

[RockDoctor]

Or you could just use a hydraulic motor that is piloted and tapped into the rest of the ROV's hydraulics. Experience exists.

Re:No

[Carnildo]

Speaking of pressure equalization and diaphragms, there's no reason you can't do this with air on the inside, you just have to have a large enough compression space for the air to compress into (i.e. an external air tank/bladder). So if the pressure at depth is 100 atmospheres, you'll need a sea-level compression space ~100 times the volume of space that your working equipment requires.

Rule of thumb is that 10 meters of water equals one atmosphere of pressure, so at the worst-case scenario of 9000 meters depth, your air compartment needs to be 900 times larger at the surface than at depth. Even with the smallest possible air compartment, that's still a pretty huge change in the total volume (and thus, buoyancy) of your ROV with depth.

If you ballast it for neutral buoyancy at the surface, it'll plummet like a rock as it gets deeper, and it'll be roughly as mobile as a rock once it hits bottom -- if it even survives the impact. If the ROV is neutrally-buoyant at depth, even a slight upward motion will cause the air compartment to expand, resulting in reduced density, increased buoyancy, and further upward motion. This creates a feedback cycle, causing the ROV to rocket to (and above) the surface, shedding debris in its wake.

You're in the counterintuitive situation of needing to drop ballast as the ROV descends, and worse, you need to *add* ballast as it ascends (but not too fast -- you don't want to turn an ascent into a descent). All submersible vessels are unstable with respect to depth, but an adjustable air compartment like you're describing makes it much worse.

Why would they?

[jandrese]

It would take a lot of effort and money to disturb this sleeping dog. Why go to the trouble?

Re:Why would they?

[Dan East]

At the rate things are going, that might be cheaper and easier than procuring it from Russia.

Re:Why would they?

[drhemi]

Because people believe the media's saber rattling and they believe Ralph Nader who said that plutonium is “the most toxic substance known to mankind.” Even though it isn't. It's just too bad Ralph didn't accept Dr. Bernard Cohen's challenge to ingest equal amounts of caffeine to plutonium.

Basically it's a "Won't somebody please think of the children!" kind of response and the government loves to keep idiots happy.

Re:Why would they?

[vlm]

At the rate things are going, that might be cheaper and easier than procuring it from Russia.

At the rate things are decaying, its gonna be about half U234 anyway, so they've got a substantial purification job up ahead if they wanna reuse it.

Re:Why would they?

[nharmon]

I believe the offer was to inhale an equal amount of plutonium as any anti-nuclear critic would ingest of caffeine.

Re:Why would they?

[arth1]

Also, the total amount of radioactive and poisonous substances on the earth actually go down as we speed up the fission process.
And depositing it that inaccessible is far less of a concern than, say, the radon gas seeping up through your average basement or well, or the Uranium being mined.

Re:Why would they?

[dotancohen]

It would take a lot of effort and money to disturb this sleeping dog. Why go to the trouble?

Sleeping dog? You mean dead dog. The RTG was out of useful power 5 years after it was made. That was 40 years ago. The thing is now a uranium-contaminated rock that would be harder to purify than the raw materials from the ground.

Re:Why would they?

[dcw3]

This is on Cohen's wikipedia page:

When Ralph Nader described plutonium as "the most toxic substance known to mankind", Cohen, then a tenured professor, offered to consume on camera as much plutonium oxide as Nader could consume of caffeine,[17] the stimulant found in coffee and other beverages, which in its pure form has an oral (LD50) of 192 milligrams per kilogram in rats.[18]

Re:Why would they?

[Deadstick]

Swallow the oxide, not inhale.

rj

Re:Why would they?

[cellocgw]

It would take a lot of effort and money to disturb this sleeping dog. Why go to the trouble?

Because it might possibly, you know, lead to the production of beta-hemoth (sorry I don't know the sekrit coding to write a "beta" there).

Re:Why would they?

[Waffle Iron]

Because people believe the media's saber rattling and they believe Ralph Nader who said that plutonium is “the most toxic substance known to mankind.” Even though it isn't. It's just too bad Ralph didn't accept Dr. Bernard Cohen's challenge to ingest equal amounts of caffeine to plutonium.

You do realize that this RTG is powered by Pu-238, which is *completely* different from the Pu-239 found in fission reactors?

Pu-239 is mildly radioactive. Maybe you wouldn't have ill effects from eating chunks of the ceramic oxide and pooped them out within a day or two. (Notice that he didn't offer to eat it in a bioavailable form. That's kind of like claiming that chlorine is always safe because it's in table salt.)

Pu-238, OTOH, is hundreds of times more radioactive, and it glows red hot. That's a whole other ball of wax.

So please, before you go around accusing people of being idiots, get your own facts straight.

Re:Why would they?

[fnj]

The half life of Pu-238 is 87.7 years. The unit from Apollo 13 should still be generating most of its original thermal output.

Re:Why would they?

[Plazmid]

Because NASA's running low on Plutonium and congress didn't approve the funds for NASA to make new Plutonium. It might be cheaper to retrieve this plutonium than to restart the whole plutonium production program.

NASA needs this plutonium for deep space missions. If we wanted to send a mission to a place like Europa, we'd need plutonium.

In fact the SNAP at the bottom of the ocean contains about as much plutonium as the RTG on the Curiosity rover.

Re:Why would they?

[Anonymous Coward]

Someday, Uranium will be mine as well.

Re:Why would they?

[drhemi]

I guess I missed where either Ralph Nader or Dr. Cohen specified which form of plutonium that they were referring to. Maybe "plutonium oxide" means the ceramic oxide or maybe not. Plutonium metal spontaneously oxidizes to PuO2 in an atmosphere of oxygen so it could be as simple as that.

Besides it was an off hand comment. The point was that the public doesn't care, all they know is plutonium is bad and will kill you.

Re:Why would they?

[Waffle Iron]

Besides it was an off hand comment. The point was that the public doesn't care, all they know is plutonium is bad and will kill you.

I think the real point is that your off hand comment shows that you didn't actually know any more about plutonium than "the public".

Re:Why would they?

[tunapez]

Kinda like Thomas Midgley Jr's public demonstrations on how safe leaded fuel is...

On October 30, 1924, Midgley participated in a press conference to demonstrate the apparent safety of TEL. In this demonstration, he poured TEL over his hands, then placed a bottle of the chemical under his nose and inhaled its vapor for sixty seconds, declaring that he could do this every day without succumbing to any problems whatsoever.

After his hiatus to recover from lead poisoning...

In 1923, Midgley took a prolonged vacation to cure himself of lead poisoning. "After about a year's work in organic lead," he wrote in January 1923, "I find that my lungs have been affected and that it is necessary to drop all work and get a large supply of fresh air." He went to Miami, Florida for convalescence.

Re:Why would they?

[rusl]

So you are saying he made the choice to inhale lead due to bad judgement from his previous lead poisoning one year earlier (in 1923)

?

Re:Why would they?

[catmistake]

I think the real point is that your off hand comment shows that you didn't actually know any more about plutonium than "the public".

Why should ignorance prevent someone from having a crowd-think based opinion?

Re:Why would they?

[Anthony Mouse]

That is kind of missing the point. The point isn't that Plutonium is nontoxic, it's that it isn't significantly more toxic than a variety of other common substances. If you ingest 50 grams of caffeine, you will die. That amount of Plutonium is not likely to do you any good either, but it's pretty hard to get much worse than "this will kill you." So if you don't like Plutonium then you need a better argument than "it's toxic," because we don't ban things from the world just because of that.

Re:Why would they?

[CanEHdian]

So you are saying he made the choice to inhale lead due to bad judgement from his previous lead poisoning one year earlier (in 1923)

?

placed a bottle of the chemical under his nose and inhaled its vapor for sixty seconds, declaring that he could do this every day without succumbing to any problems whatsoever.

What happened was when he went outside, he looked up at the sun and accidentally farted and then the gas ignited, launching him on a slingshot trajectory around the sun, ending up back in 1923. He went to Miami to prevent him from meeting himself.

Re:Why would they?

[mug funky]

none of your issue with his post actually weakens the point though. the point is there are most certainly things that are more toxic than plutonium, including things that millions of people voluntarily ingest every day.

Re:Why would they?

[Anthony Mouse]

Which is naturally why we have to prohibit professionals with training from handling Plutonium, but any idiot is allowed to smoke cigarettes in the presence of children.

Yes, but only as political camoflauge

[fortapocalypse]

Keepin' it in their back pocket to recover when a distraction is needed from some other larger screw-up.

There was concern at the last minute!

[k6mfw]

In the early 1970s book "The Flight That Failed" by S.F. Cooper mentions as the spacecraft was approaching earth, someone (I think from the AEC) said they need to consider where the RTG will land. Ugh, there was already enough going on as crews were powering up the command module, a looming storm in the landing area, spacecraft attitude close to gimbal lock as it positions for re-entry. All this when many had very little sleep, then this guy brings up the RTG. Interesting book as it was written years before the fame brought on by the movie, also lots of esoteric details for techies.

Re:There was concern at the last minute!

[k6mfw]

Regarding Apollo 13, there was a 1974 TV movie "Houston, We've Got a Problem" which Sy Liebergot (EECOM) described as a terrible movie with awful amount of errors such as someone having a heart attack in Mission Control (no such thing happened) and portrayed Sy as cheating on his wife (that never occurred). They didn't think this movie would have so many things wrong when they did their film shots at Houston. After that, everyone (those that work the MOCR) said they need to be careful this kind of thing doesn't happen again. Sy said when Charles Murray and Catherine Cox were working on their book (Apollo: Race to the Moon, 1989), he got on their case, "don't you ever think about screwing up facts" (they ensured it will not happen, their book is considered the best on those that made Apollo program successful. it is not about astronauts). Later years when Jeff Kluger working with Lovell on the book "Lost Moon" Sy again stressed "don't you ever think about screwing up facts" which Jeff had to re-assure Sy and others they will not screwup like those that did the 1974 movie.

You have got to be kidding me

[trout007]

You mean radiation can't penetrate 6,000 meters of water? If you look at the decay chain of PU 238 they are all solid until you get to radon. And at 6000 m of water the pressure is enough to keep it a liquid and too dense to bubble up.That means all of the decay products will sit there in the water and decay protected by an equivalent shielding of 1000 ft of lead.

Re:You have got to be kidding me

[Dynedain]

1000m of lead does not move (easily). Water does.

Re:You have got to be kidding me

[bmo]

radon

Indeed. Radon is a bigger risk in your basement.

--
BMO

Re:You have got to be kidding me

[Zorpheus]

Are you worried about 3.8kg of Plutonium dilluted in the ocean?

Re:You have got to be kidding me

[MightyMartian]

Maybe there's some aspect of radioactive decay I don't understand. I'm really unclear here. So what if the water moves? Obviously you have some greater knowledge than I on the subject, so do please elaborate on how the movement of water affects its ability to absorb decay products?

Re:You have got to be kidding me

[Oswald McWeany]

Radon

Kills sea bugs... dead

Re:You have got to be kidding me

[neonKow]

I think the point is that lead can be used to isolate the radioactive material and will stay localized, but if the water is irradiated, it spreads.

Re:You have got to be kidding me

[MightyMartian]

And gets heavily diluted. It would take an awful lot of plutonium to cause any long term hike in the radioactivity in a body of water the size of an ocean. This relatively small amount of material, at those depths, is probably safer than any man-made facility could ever be at containing the material.

Re:You have got to be kidding me

[Kamiza Ikioi]

Heck, why not just dump it all in the ocean, then?

I'm sensing a flaw in an ocean dumping theory. Is it a problem of quantity?

Re:You have got to be kidding me

[SnarfQuest]

Radon

Kills sea bugs... dead

Sea kittens, you senseless clod!

Re:You have got to be kidding me

[tp1024]

What's worse: 3.8kg of Pu-238 in the ocean or 4.5 billion tons of Uranium, several million tons of Radium, Lead-210 and further decay products already there?

Re:You have got to be kidding me

[David_Hart]

You mean it won't burn a hole through the earth's crust and cause all sorts of science fiction type disasters??? awwww....

Re:You have got to be kidding me

[residieu]

So what if the irradiated water spreads? It's not dangerous.

Re:You have got to be kidding me

[Christian Smith]

I think the point is that lead can be used to isolate the radioactive material and will stay localized, but if the water is irradiated, it spreads.

Assuming the irradiated water absorbs the neutrons, won't it just be more dense than the surrounding water, and simply sink? Should keep it pretty local. Any containment breach of the Pu or decay products should similarly sink. Unless this thing is sitting on a hydrothermal vent, I'd doubt any living matter will even get close to it to be affected.

Re:You have got to be kidding me

[Gilmoure]

It could let the dinosaurs out and then they'd be in the surface world... 6000M underwater... um... What was the problem?

Re:You have got to be kidding me

[trout007]

I should clarify my comment. I wasn't suggesting disposal of radioactive waste in the ocean.

I was responding to this sentence. " Extensive monitoring of the atmosphere in the area showed that no radiation escaped." The idea that you could detect radiation in concentrations above the background radiation in 6000m of water is ridiculous.

Re:You have got to be kidding me

[Dynedain]

Diluted? No. Having it move undiluted or be relatively concentrated? Possibly. I'm not paid to worry about it though, people at NASA are.

Re:You have got to be kidding me

[neonKow]

Eh. Don't know about the specifics; just answering your question. I know there's stuff like the Gulf Stream off the coast of Mexico/USA where water currents stay mostly intact but move around, and there was the concern that it would move the polution from the BP spill across the Atlantic. Don't know if that happens for water 6000 km under.

In any case, there are still plenty of situations between water acting like solid lead, and water perfectly diluting all the radiation across the entire ocean.

Re:You have got to be kidding me

[trout007]

PU 238 doesn't undergo fission and doesn't release neutrons. The decay chain is almost all alpha particles (non radioactive helium and blocked by your skin. There are some very rare decays that could produce neutrons but not in any meaningful number.
Pu 238 -> U 234 + alpha (h/l 100 years)
U 234 -> Th 230 + alpha (h/l 250,000 years)
Th 230 -> Ra 226 + alpha (h/l 75,000 years)
Ra 226 ->Rn 222 + alpha (h/l 1,00 years)
Rn 222 -> Po 218 + alpha (h/l 4 days)
Po 218 -> Pb 214 + alpha (h/l 3 minutes)

Re:You have got to be kidding me

[neonKow]

I don't think so. Like I said above, I don't know that much about the subject, but I don't think radiation+water is that simple or we wouldn't have problems with dealing with radioactive waste from nuclear power plants. Isn't the water and steam used to cool nuclear power plants not safe to just release back into the environment?

Re:You have got to be kidding me

[mitchell_pgh]

I think we have other issues to worry about before the 3.8kg of Plutonium from NASA.

The Kara Sea has ~16 dumped nuclear reactors (some with spent fuel rods) from the Soviet era.

Re:You have got to be kidding me

[JSBiff]

All what? Nuclear waste? Probably not a terribly bad idea, in reality, but good luck with convincing the public. Unfortunately, after the water pollution problems of the 60's and 70's, the public is (understandably) wary of dumping any waste products into water supplies.

Whether it's technically a feasible way to deal with nuclear waste and whether it really would create any problems, the public will largely assume it will create a problem, and blame every ill they happen to have thereafter on it.

Re:You have got to be kidding me

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a lost H bomb in a Georgia coastal swamp that is probably putting out more rads than the RTG and they can't find that either.

Re:You have got to be kidding me

[Jarik C-Bol]

so basically... we've got a couple kilos of a radioactive product that produces heat, alpha particles (that are not particularly dangerous?) and its sitting in one of the deeper trenches in the ocean, and according to the summary, it is assumed that its containment vessel is intact, because thorough monitoring of the area has detected no signs that it has been breached?
and the problem is what exactly?

Re:You have got to be kidding me

[camperdave]

Pu 238 -> U 234 + alpha (h/l 100 years)
U 234 -> Th 230 + alpha (h/l 250,000 years)
Th 230 -> Ra 226 + alpha (h/l 75,000 years)
Ra 226 ->Rn 222 + alpha (h/l 1,00 years)
Rn 222 -> Po 218 + alpha (h/l 4 days)
Po 218 -> Pb 214 + alpha (h/l 3 minutes)

Um... Those are all fission reactions, are they not?

Re:You have got to be kidding me

[nojayuk]

Seawater is already radioactive, reading about 10-11 Bequerels/litre in a scintillometer. The isotope responsible is potassium-40, the same stuff that makes sea salt trigger a Geiger counter. A BOTE calculation suggests the oceans contain about 50 million tonnes of this radioactive isotope, half-life about a billion years.

There's also three tonnes of uranium dissolved in each cubic kilometre of seawater. At a ratio of 0.6% U-235 (the fissile stuff) that's about 20kg or enough for a simple nuke of the Hiroshima type in each cubic kilometre and there are 1.3 billion cubic kilometres of seawater.

Pu238 not for bombs

[advid.net]

The Plutonium 238 is suitable for RTG (radioisotope thermoelectric generator) but not for bombs.

Maybe this info will spare us most "nuke" posts (terrorist jokes, etc).

Re:Pu238 not for bombs

[bmo]

Maybe this info will spare us most "nuke" posts

Surely you jest. I have lower expectations. I was not surprised at post #38191852.

--
BMO

Re:Pu238 not for bombs

[Rashdot]

Maybe this info will spare us most "nuke" posts (terrorist jokes, etc).

How about Godzilla overlord jokes?

Re:Pu238 not for bombs

[dotancohen]

The Plutonium 238 is suitable for RTG (radioisotope thermoelectric generator) but not for bombs.

Maybe this info will spare us most "nuke" posts (terrorist jokes, etc).

Furthermore, RTGs are not nuclear reactors as the summary states.

Furtherfurthermore, why is this news now and not 40 years ago?

Re:Pu238 not for bombs

[donscarletti]

Well, put it this way, it is a hell of a lot easier to turn that Pu-238 into Pu-239 through bombardment in a small reactor than it would be to isolate a useful quantity of U-235 from anything you're likely to be able to find outside of weapons, including fuel rods. I'm not saying it would be easy, but excluding fissile isotopes, that would be by far the next most convenient isotope for making a type weapon, that lets face it, is really, really hard to make. Sure, you or I could not turn it into weapons grade 239, but we couldn't make a multi point hollow pit implosion mechanism either. Gun types are simpler, but getting that U-235 is next to impossible, unless you have hundreds of tonnes of uranium and some gas centrifuges lying around.

Re:Pu238 not for bombs

[SnarfQuest]

Doesn't matter. The news media will still publish their stories about how a single molecule of plutonium is sufficient to kill 30,000 people. Facts aren't important here. Publishing lurid tales of mass destruction is what they consider important.

Re:Pu238 not for bombs

[Anonymous Coward]

We didn't have slashdot 40 years ago.

Re:Pu238 not for bombs

[tp1024]

But it is impossible to prevent the Pu-239 from being further transmuted into (non-fissle) Pu-240 (or fissioned) before a sufficient amount of Pu-238 has been turned into Pu-239 to get the weapon-grade Plutonium (IIRC with at least 93% Pu-239)

Re:Pu238 not for bombs

[kimvette]

You would be surprised at how many people think that. Hell, there are people who think you need to wait a few minutes after a microwave oven shuts off before opening it - not for fear of water splattering, but for fear of radiation poisoning. And yet, those same people don't think backscatter porn shoots at airports are a big deal.

Re:Pu238 not for bombs

[residieu]

By that logic do you even need anything radioactive in your dirty bomb? Just CLAIM it contained plutonium and you'll generate the necessary paranoia. Anyone trying to tell people that there was nothing there is just trying to cover it all up.

Re:Pu238 not for bombs

[fnj]

Actually, while the picture conjured up by "nuclear reactor" is ludicrously inappropriate to this device, the term per se is not actually incorrect usage. The Pu-239 undergoes alpha decay in the device, which is, after all, a nuclear reaction.

'The often-quoted idea that "nuclear reactions" are confined to induced processes is incorrect. "Radioactive decays" are a subgroup of "nuclear reactions" that are spontaneous rather than induced.'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_reaction

Re:Pu238 not for bombs

[R3d M3rcury]

But couldn't the terr'ists use this to generate electricity in their caves?

Re:Pu238 not for bombs

[DerekLyons]

Furtherfurthermore, why is this news now and not 40 years ago?

Because 40 years ago, the technology and ability to search for fuel cask were all but non-existent. This is no longer true.

Re:Pu238 not for bombs

[Jarik C-Bol]

you need to read this: http://geology.about.com/od/geophysics/a/aaoklo.htm turns out, we've only harnessed nature.

Re:Pu238 not for bombs

[dotancohen]

I agree with you. And quite the fact that the reactions are spontaneous rather than induced is the reason that the device is not a reactor: it does not induce reactions.

Re:Pu238 not for bombs

[mug funky]

damn good point. i wonder why this hasn't happened yet?

Re:Pu238 not for bombs

[vlm]

damn good point. i wonder why this hasn't happened yet?

Because there isn't a "real" threat. Only false flag operations and the occasional mentally ill shoe bomber. The "threat" is the population not being scared into submission. The war on terror is the solution.

Re:Pu238 not for bombs

[vlm]

By that logic do you even need anything radioactive in your dirty bomb? Just CLAIM it contained plutonium and you'll generate the necessary paranoia. Anyone trying to tell people that there was nothing there is just trying to cover it all up.

Too many journalists with beta/gamma geiger counters... need the clicky clicky.

An alpha emitter would probably kill more people (most of the worst of the bone seeker isotopes are alpha emitters) but without the clicky clicky, you get no reporters reporters, so...

Also if you're going to go fake, anyone with a cheap counter can blow the lid on a dirty bomb, but only a couple labs in the country can verify talcum foot powder is not actually anthrax. Thats why the "anthrax letter scare of 2002", or whatever it was, was the "anthrax letter scare of 2002", not the "Cobalt 60 scare of 2002".

Re:terrorist may want it

[GigG]

And if they can find it and retrieve it from 6km down they have earned it.

Small potatos compared to....

[seifried]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sunken_nuclear_submarines and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_nuclear_disasters_and_radioactive_incidents.

Re:Small potatos compared to....

[mmontour]

Kids today may not know this, but the former Soviet Union launched a series of radar satellites that were powered by full fission reactors (not just RTGs). At the end of their service life they were designed to eject the reactor cores and boost them into a higher parking orbit.

Most of the time it worked, and those spent reactor cores are still up there with all of the other space debris. However there were a few notable failures, including the 1978 uncontrolled re-entry of Kosmos 954 which sprayed radioactive contamination across a large stretch of northern Canada. It was just luck that it came down there rather than over a more populated section of the planet.

Will the US Military ever...

[stox]

find that Mark 15 H-Bomb they misplaced somewhere near the coast of Georgia?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1958_Tybee_Island_mid-air_collision

Re:Will the US Military ever...

[vlm]

find that Mark 15 H-Bomb they misplaced somewhere near the coast of Georgia?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1958_Tybee_Island_mid-air_collision

Fissile enriched U is much easier to detect than non-fissile Pu-238.

Also, I don't think there was or is any consensus on what capsule if any was loaded into the casing. Lots of coverup and secret secret BS activity and falsified stories and documents. At this point, I donno if anyone really knows for sure what was lost.

Re:Will the US Military ever...

[Anonymous Coward]

only thing lost was the truth

wtf?

[iocat]

Wow, that's a really poorly written article. From TFA:

The catastrophic risk came from the SNAP-27 radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG), a small nuclear reactor that was going to be placed on the moon to power experiments, carrying Plutonium 238 Apollo 13’s lunar module.

What does that even mean? Anyway, if it was in the LEM, did the LEM even survive rentry? Since it had no heat shield, etc.? Is the LEM still attched to the CM during re-entry even? Pretty sure it's not.

Re:wtf?

[0123456]

Anyway, if it was in the LEM, did the LEM even survive rentry? Since it had no heat shield, etc.? Is the LEM still attched to the CM during re-entry even? Pretty sure it's not.

The LEM was attached to the CM until just before re-entry; the SM was separated from the CM before the CM separated from the LEM, since the LEM was providing most of the life support and the SM was just dead weight. The LEM was not designed for reentry and burned up, but the RTG itself was designed to survive accidental reentry intact and is probably sitting on the sea-bed somewhere.

Re:wtf?

[bmo]

The CM came back with the LEM. If you remember, it was the lifeboat for 4 days.

It was jettisoned before reentry. But it certainly did enter the atmosphere over Fiji and burn up.

--
BMO

Re:wtf?

[iocat]

Cool thanks.

Re:wtf?

[Cramer]

In a normal flight, the LEM doesn't come back to Earth. In this case, it was a lifeboat for the return to Earth. It was cut loose prior to reentry. The CM came back pretty much as normal from that point.

The LEM fell out of orbit -- uncontrolled re-entry. It did not survive intact. However, the SNAP-27 in one of it's payload modules most likely did, as it was designed to do so. The thing is, no one was paying close attention to the LEM as it de-orbited -- not that anyone could have spotted/followed the SNAP-27 in that mess.

Risk vs. Hydrogen Bombs set off in the atmosphere?

[Gavin Scott]

We used to just set off fission and fusion bombs in the air and on the ground, so I would kinda think the long term risk from a small amount of PU238 at the bottom of the ocean is not all that much in the grand scheme of things, especially since it may be completely contained.

Oh, and there may be a few people still walking around with similarly plutonium-powered pacemakers in their chests...

http://www.theodoregray.com/periodictable/Samples/094.3/index.s12.html
http://www.orau.org/ptp/collection/miscellaneous/pacemaker.htm

G.

Is it the right kind (isotope) of Pu?

[wisebabo]

I always wondered whether or not recovering this would be viable, but I wasn't sure since I know next to nothing about nuclear physics if this plutonium (Pu) could be used to make a bomb. Still, I guess it could be used for a dirty bomb.

When Cassini was launched I figured that (if the plutonium was the right kind), Saddam Hussein (remember him?) might be very interested in getting a hold of the 70(!) lbs. of Pu on board. Cassini was scheduled to do a flyby (gravitational assist) using the earth, passing overhead at an altitude of 800 miles I think, and it would be easy to redirect it so that it would instead impact the earth almost anywhere, say for example the Iraqi desert. Since the RTGs carrying the plutonium were specifically designed to handle the most horrific accidents like an explosion on launch or reentry, I figured that all Saddam had to do was get control of Cassini.

He (or rather his minions) wouldn't need to control Cassini for a long period of time. All that would have to be done would be to make the appropriate course correction WHILE USING UP ALL THE FUEL. Then even if NASA (or most likely by then the CIA) wrested control back of Cassini, they could only watch helplessly while Cassini plummeted back to earth into Saddams greedy little hands (and into a James Bond like action movie as MI-6 tried to recover it).

I actually knew the senior flight control engineer on Cassini at the time and asked him if anyone had offered him a couple of million dollars to make this happen. He laughed and said of course not and there were safeguards to prevent this from happening but then told me not to tell anyone about this idea. (Maybe he was afraid of someone making him an offer he couldn't refuse). Now that Cassini is safe orbiting Saturn, New Horizons is out of the inner solar system and MSL is on its way to Mars I guess it's okay to talk about it now! (All these probes have plutonium filled RTGs).

Anyway, the other point that the summary makes is that with undersea technology now getting robust and cheap enough for non-governments to afford it, there are other nuclear prizes in the deep sea. Like what about the Thresher which even if it wasn't carrying nuclear warheads, certainly had a huge amount of nuclear fuel in its reactor? Or even more to the point how bout the nuclear sub the CIA tried to lift in the 70s using Howard Hughes and the Glomar Challenger as a cover? That sub WAS carrying nuclear warheads and that was the part of the sub they were unable to recover. (There are lots of other nukes lost at sea, I'm sure Google or Wikipedia can enlighten you).

So if Al-Qaeeda starts developing undersea technology, you know what they're after. Or maybe they'll just use it to smuggle drugs like the south american drug cartels are doing.

Re:Is it the right kind (isotope) of Pu?

[bmo]

So if Al-Qaeeda starts developing undersea technology

What the FUCK am I reading?

--
BMO

Re:Is it the right kind (isotope) of Pu?

[tp1024]

No. You're looking at Pu-238 not Pu-239.

Re:Is it the right kind (isotope) of Pu?

[tgeek]

Speaking of the K9 and the Glomar Challenger, have a look at the documentary on the efforts to raise it: Azorian: Raising of the K9 (or something like that - it is or was available on Netflix streaming). Very interesting look at the engineering marvel it was to even attempt to bring the sub up from over 3 miles -- all the while in secrecy.

Re:Is it the right kind (isotope) of Pu?

[tgeek]

Oops, that should be "K129" rather than "K9".

Re:Is it the right kind (isotope) of Pu?

[bmo]

After us, it will be the turn for Dogs and Dogkind.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_(novel)

--
BMO - and I even have the audiobook

Re:Is it the right kind (isotope) of Pu?

[Grishnakh]

Or even more to the point how bout the nuclear sub the CIA tried to lift in the 70s using Howard Hughes and the Glomar Challenger as a cover?

It was the Glomar Explorer; the Challenger was a different ship. According to wikipedia, part of the submarine was indeed recovered, including 2 nuclear-tipped torpedoes, and 6 soviet mariners who were reburied at sea.

Re:Is it the right kind (isotope) of Pu?

[Mike Van Pelt]

So if Al-Qaeeda starts developing undersea technology, you know what they're after.

Osama bin Ladin's body?

Re:Is it the right kind (isotope) of Pu?

[nitehawk214]

So if Al-Qaeeda starts developing undersea technology

What the FUCK am I reading?

They plan on recovering Osama's body.

Re:Is it the right kind (isotope) of Pu?

[Anynomous Coward]

An osama-laden bin ?

Re:Is it the right kind (isotope) of Pu?

[Shadowmist]

It's a lot more easier scenario to simply buy this stuff off of the Russian black market, than to contemplate trying to recover material that even a black opts with deep pockets couldn't manage. The reason that stuff is still down there is because it's not that easy to get to.

Not a "Reactor"

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a Radioisotope Thermal Generator (RTG) see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_generator (wikipedia). It produces heat via radioactive decay. It is not in any way, shape, or form, a "reactor." It cannot go critical, there is no neutron production, and no fissile material even remotely relevant for nuclear bomb production. Pu238 (active ingredient) decays via alpha emission. The alpha particles are completely contained by anything including a birthday balloon. The plutonium itself is (by design) contained by a steel vessel, and they've demonstrated that those don't have trouble with splashdown and extended submersion.

The biggest danger it posed was hitting somebody on the head when it fell.

Re:Not a "Reactor"

[fnj]

This is a Radioisotope Thermal Generator (RTG) see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_generator (wikipedia). It produces heat via radioactive decay. It is not in any way, shape, or form, a "reactor."

Actually, it *is* grammatically truly a kind of nuclear reactor.

http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2547780&cid=38193156

Re:Oh, great!

[marcosdumay]

A few million dollars?! You must make that more realistic. Try a few hundred million dollars.

Even Now...

[chemindefer]

Something new is stirring itself there, something enormous and hideous.

The Mars-96 Plutonium 238 is MUCH more worrisome

[Squidlips]

The Russian Mars-96 probe never left orbit and dumped 200 grams of Plutonium 238 over Bolivia, none of which has been recovered...at least no one is talking about it. Some of this Plutonium 238 was in ground penetrators that were designed to survive atmospheric entry and impact so it is probably still out there unless someone has quietly snatched it up. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_96#Fate_of_the_plutonium_fuel

Pu-238 is not fissile...

[KonoWatakushi]

Not if the mermen militarise the plutonium and use it against the land people.

They're vicious SOBs down there.

This may be a joke, but it is worth pointing out that the Plutonium used in RTGs is not fissile, and can't be used to make bombs. Pu-238 is only useful for RTGs. The isotope used in bombs is Pu-239, which is a common product of Uranium based reactors.

Producing Pu-238 is actually very difficult, as described in the above link. Unfortunately, the worlds supply is dwindling, and this endangers many upcoming space missions. One attractive option for creating more is to use Liquid fluoride thorium reactors, where Pu-238 is one of many useful products created.

Re:Pu-238 is not fissile...

[s13g3]

This may be a joke, but it is worth pointing out that the Plutonium used in RTGs is not fissile, and can't be used to make bombs. Pu-238 is only useful for RTGs. The isotope used in bombs is Pu-239, which is a common product of Uranium based reactors.

Producing Pu-238 is actually very difficult, as described in the above link. Unfortunately, the worlds supply is dwindling, and this endangers many upcoming space missions. One attractive option for creating more is to use Liquid fluoride thorium reactors, where Pu-238 is one of many useful products created.

It's also worth noting that you're talking about nuclear weapons. It can be used to make "dirty" bombs, however.

Re:Pu-238 is not fissile...

[icebike]

It's also worth noting that you're talking about nuclear weapons. It can be used to make "dirty" bombs, however.

There are far more readily available sources than dredging up something 6-9 kilometers under the sea.
Anyone with the resources to reach something that deep could make a dirty bomb without all the drama of launching a deep sea mission to do so.

Re:Pu-238 is not fissile...

[c6gunner]

It's also worth noting that you're talking about nuclear weapons. It can be used to make "dirty" bombs, however.

Only a really stupid terrorist would bother with dirty bombs. The added impact (vs conventional bombs) is negligible, and the risk of detection goes up drastically.

Dirty bombs are one of those "threats" that some military consultant dreamed up because he was asked to come up with an exhaustive list of possibilities, and the media latched on to it because most people are stupid, uninformed animals who react instinctively at the mention of the word "nuclear". A more real threat is chemical and biological (especially biological) warfare, though even there we've seen no serious attempts by any of the major players. Your standard suicide bombings are a much more likely scenario - personally I expected to see at least a few of those pulled off against targets like trains and busses by now, but the American feds seem to be doing an excellent job at stopping them.

Re:Pu-238 is not fissile...

[Tomato42]

There have been multiple radiation sources used in radio therapy lost (few dozen people lost their lives because of that). And we still haven't seen those "dirty" bombs.

If you have enough explosives to make a bomb, the effect will be much "better" using depleted uranium balls around it than any kind of fissile materials...

Re:Pu-238 is not fissile...

[Oswald McWeany]

All that is true. However the amount of terror it would cause with the general population is quite significant when compared to a dirty bomb (whole purpose of terrorism).

If you think about the fukushima incident where people in the US were needlessly buying iodine pills.

A dirty bomb would cause a much bigger panic amongst people- it wouldn't just be a few overly paranoid individuals. It would be a lot of overly paranoid individuals.

The average terror plot doesn't really affect that many people physically- it is about the mental impact on the population as a whole. A dirty bomb would give a nation a big mental black eye.

Re:Pu-238 is not fissile...

[interkin3tic]

There are far more readily available sources than dredging up something 6-9 kilometers under the sea.

Not for the mermen we were talking about initially!

Re:Pu-238 is not fissile...

[camperdave]

If you have enough explosives to make a bomb, the effect will be much "better" using depleted uranium balls around it than any kind of fissile materials...

For some values of "better". The scattering of radioactive material would make cleanup both expensive and very public. For a hypothetical terrorist, the propaganda surrounding the detonation of a "nuclear device" could far outweigh the actual damage caused.

Re:Pu-238 is not fissile...

[c6gunner]

Naw. Oh, sure the news channels would have a blast (*rimshot*) with it, and everyone would panic for a week or two, but it would have zero long-term effect on the population.

An attack which leaves zero casualties isn't particularly effective at scaring people. While the news channels can draw up power-point charts and neat-o "effect radius" maps, that's just not as "sexy" as big explosions and bodies in the street. How many days in a row can they go on reporting "no casualties today, but wait until tomorrow!"?

You mention Fukushima - other than the usual fringe quacks prattling on (as they were before the incident), and some people being even more convinced that Nukular is Teh Eeevil, what actual effect has it had on people? Has it changed anyone's mind? Affected the way we go about our lives? Changed foreign or domestic policy? Not in my experience. The people who were afraid of nuclear power are still afraid, and people who thought we need more of them are more convinced than ever that we should be building new power-plants. And that was a disaster of a far larger magnitude than a "dirty bomb".

While we're at it, I have to question the word "terrorism" when applied to an attack whose only measurable effects are to cause irrational fear and slightly increase the long-term average death rate. By that definition, Jenny McCarthy is a terrorist.

Re:Pu-238 is not fissile...

[Tomato42]

But the amount of people killed would be much lower

Re:Pu-238 is not fissile...

[Tomato42]

And one more thing: smuggling fissionable materials is much more problematic than making explosives. The detectors are often triggered by bananas, let alone by amounts of fissionable materials usable in a dirty bomb!

Re:Pu-238 is not fissile...

[Eunuchswear]

no it isn't, in spite of word "terrorism" having the word "terror" in it. Terrorists simply want to kill certain people, out of hatred and a feeling of powerlessness.

Crap. The meaning of terrorism is the same as it always was -

Attempting to achieve polilical ends by terrorising your enemies.

You know, "shock and awe".

People who say shit like "they hate our freedom" or "terrorists just want to kill certain people out of hatred" are either idiots with their fingers in their ears or people trying to distract you from what's really going on.

Re:Pu-238 is not fissile...

[cffrost]

How about the cartels? They have submarines now...

The subs used for shipping cocaine only need (and possess) sufficient submersiblity to evade visual and radar detection. A sub that could dive to 6-9km probably wouldn't be cost-effective for cartels to finance/build/operate.

Re:Pu-238 is not fissile...

[AmiMoJo]

Only a really stupid terrorist would bother with dirty bombs

Terrorists are stupid, or at least the Islamic ones are. For decades other terrorist organisations managed to bomb all sorts of targets without killing themselves in the process, and by not dying the knowledge and experience they gained could be put to good (or do I mean bad) use next time. They are also obsessed with ridiculously difficult targets like aircraft, when they could kill just as many people by attacking the queues at the airport and live to do it again.

So while a dirty bomb isn't actually very effective in terms of causing actual harm or very easy to build and deploy the glory hunting Islamic terrorist is attracted to it by his own stupidity and short-sightedness. Having just rubbished dirty bombs it is worth saying that the economic cost can be significant, but again these guys are not interested in furthering their goals, only in killing people indiscriminately.

Re:Pu-238 is not fissile...

[mrchaotica]

Ah, so that's where they got the idea for the banana bomb in Worms.

Re:Pu-238 is not fissile...

[Oswald McWeany]

You mention Fukushima - other than the usual fringe quacks prattling on (as they were before the incident), and some people being even more convinced that Nukular is Teh Eeevil, what actual effect has it had on people? Has it changed anyone's mind? Affected the way we go about our lives? Changed foreign or domestic policy? Not in my experience.

In the US it prompted an entire governmental review of our entire nuclear program and all nuclear sites.

In France, one of the worlds most nuclear friendly countries, and in Germany, it started protest marches against nuclear power.

Germany went so far as to plan to completely remove nuclear power from its portfolio as soon as possible.

In Britain, several men were arrested outside the Windscale plant not long after- perhaps because the police were overly sensitive about the nuclear disaster still.

So- yes, it had an impact- less so in the US than in Germany- but worldwide it caused governments to review their power sources.

Just like one day of attacks using planes completely altered flight for ever- one day of "nuclear" disaster caused worldwide change.

Who knows what a dirty bomb would do.

and- science or not... surely the media would be linking it to cancer in the children for decades.

Re:Pu-238 is not fissile...

[Creepy]

Plus for a dirty bomb you'd ideally use something that tosses out a lot of gamma rays, and I believe RTGs are designed to slow radioactive decay and mostly emit alpha rays. They do still require shielding because they do emit high energy gamma rays, but nothing remotely close to what most people think of when they hear "nuclear reactor," which is most likely a pressurized water nuclear reactor (PWR).

I think the fear of the word "radiation" sometimes causes a panic and people don't realize that they are surrounded by radiation every day, whether from their cell phone, a granite kitchen counter, or the sun.

Re:Pu-238 is not fissile...

[lars_stefan_axelsson]

A more real threat is chemical and biological (especially biological) warfare, though even there we've seen no serious attempts by any of the major players.

Well, maybe not a major player, but it's been tried. If they only had had a usable delivery system (other than just puncturing the canisters and leaving vapour pressure alone to do it's thing) it might have gotten much uglier than it did.

Many people in the west seem to forget this particular incident. Now, granted they were very sophisticated as terrorist organisations go, but what used to take a nation state is now within reach of a much smaller outfit.

Re:Pu-238 is not fissile...

[c6gunner]

I knew someone was going to point out that incident :) Yeah, it was pretty horrific and could have been much worse, but, as you said, not carried out by a major player, which is why I didn't mention it.

I don't think they were particularly sophisticated either; otherwise they would have put more effort into the delivery system. True, they were better than your typical Islamic terrorist organization, but that's not really saying much ...

Re:Pu-238 is not fissile...

[c6gunner]

Crap. The meaning of terrorism is the same as it always was -

Attempting to achieve polilical ends by terrorising your enemies.

Talk about a circular definition! You sure you don't want to try that one again?

You know, "shock and awe".

Yeah. Teh Eeevil Amerihcuns. Eleventy.

People who say shit like "they hate our freedom" or "terrorists just want to kill certain people out of hatred" are either idiots with their fingers in their ears or people trying to distract you from what's really going on.

Ah, the irony.

See, you know what I don't get? How some people can be completely comfortable accepting the idea that the actions of Christian extemists are motivated by religion, while simultaneously denying that Islamic terrorism might have a strong, irrational, religious component.

Jimbo Bloggins killing abortion doctors?
"It's Tech EEEVIL Chrischoon brainwashed by the bible!"

Mohammed Jihaad flying a plane into a building?
"Well, see, you have to understand the geopolitical situation present in unstable nation-states combined with the inherent oppressive tendencies of imperialist capitalist nations controlled by global mega-corporations"

It's a mind-boggling double standard. Personally, I just tend to take people at their word. If someone tells me he killed an abortion doctor because god wanted him to do it, I'll view that the same way as someone telling me he killed a bunch of westerners because Allah hates heathens. While my opinions could possibly be wrong, at least they have the advantage of being consistent. You don't even have that much. It's quite amusing to see you accuse others of having their fingers in their ears, while simultaneously refusing to listen to what the fanatics are saying. Yeah, the end-goal for them is changing our behavior, but if you believe that hatred of our values and way of life isn't a prime motivating factor then you simply haven't been listening.

Re:Pu-238 is not fissile...

[lars_stefan_axelsson]

I don't think they were particularly sophisticated either; otherwise they would have put more effort into the delivery system. True, they were better than your typical Islamic terrorist organization, but that's not really saying much ...

Yes, with "sophisticated" I was more referring to the fact that they managed to make Sarin in the first place. This compared to your typical Islamic terrorist organisation that can't even mix proper explosives (or just steal some dynamite for crying out loud). So yes, that's indeed not saying much...

But speaking of the Sarin gas attack. I've always wondered about that. Given that it was the second time they tried it, and given that they were sophisticated enough to make it in the first place one has to wonder about the inept delivery system. I mean it would take someone five minutes to come up with a spray nozzle, tank and a CO2 cartridge. (Add a drop of acid or two to eat through the cartridge and you have a coarse time delay.)

So I can't help but wondering whether the delivery system was designed to be sub optimal, and whether that was an organisational goal or someone working within the organisation against it's goal? Or if they just were that screwed up? (Not to sound like a conspiracy theorist or anything). When I last checked the public sources available to me I didn't find anything hard, apart from similar speculation.

Re:Pu-238 is not fissile...

[Eunuchswear]

Don't be fucking stupid.

There is no double standard.

A "Christian" terrorist killing abortion doctors is explicitly doing it to influence the behaviour of other abortion doctors.

Terrorism is a tactic. It has been used by governments against their people (France, where the term was invented), revolutionaries, states (Allied bombing campaigns against German cities, German bombing campaigns against British cites), Christians, Islamists, Budhists, Hindus, Comunists, Capitalists....

Re:Pu-238 is not fissile...

[c6gunner]

Of course it's a tactic. So what?

Executing 6 million Jews, plus another 5 million Gypsies and homosexuals, was also a tactic. I suppose you'd disagree with the statement "Hitler hated Jews, Gypsies, and homosexuals" too? Because that's what you're implying here. If the phrases "they hate our freedoms" and "terrorists just want to kill certain people out of hatred" are "idiotic", then the phrase "Hitler wanted to kill certain people out of hatred" would have to be idiotic also.

I really don't think you've thought this through fully. Before you fire off another vehement response, let your thoughts ferment for a bit. Then, if you can make a clear case for making such a distinction ... I'm all ears.

Re:Pu-238 is not fissile...

[Eunuchswear]

Cretin.

Executing 6 million Jews, plus another 5 million Gypsies and homosexuals, was also a tactic.

No, that was a goal.

You use tactics to obtain what you want.

The extermination of the "undesirables" was what the Nazis wanted to do, not a tactic.

Re:Pu-238 is not fissile...

[c6gunner]

Should have taken my advice.

Re:Pu-238 is not fissile...

[Lucractius]

Which is why i make a deliberate effort to mention the important word "ionizing" when it comes to dangerous things.

People dont learn without repetition.

This isn't the one that worries me

[afabbro]

Rather, it's the SNAP reactor buried in an avalanche at the headwaters of the Ganges river.

Autumn 1965

"a small leak"

[sgt101]

The snap-9a accident was not a small leak.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_nuclear_accidents

Indeed NASA (in the 1995 Cassini FEIS)[35] indicated that the SNAP-9a plutonium release was nearly double the 9000Ci added by all the atmospheric weapons tests to that date.[40][41]

1 pCi exposure typically will kill in 10^-8 of cases, but there were 9000^12 pCi dispersed by SNAP9. You can take any view you like about how many of them have actually been exposed to humans.

Re:"a small leak"

[QuantumPion]

1 pCi exposure typically will kill in 10^-8 of cases, but there were 9000^12 pCi dispersed by SNAP9. You can take any view you like about how many of them have actually been exposed to humans.

Your logic is comically flawed. The danger posed by 1 pCi is extrapolated from the danger of exposing one person to 9000^12 pCi. You are then trying to double extrapolate that 1 pCi back to a large number of people. Statistics doesn't work like that.

Analogy: Drinking 5 liters of water all at once will kill 1/10 people. Obviously therefore drinking 0.05 liters of water will kill 1/1000 people.

Re:"a small leak"

[sgt101]

I can't think how you got that from what I wrote, however here is where I got my figures from.

http://www.ead.anl.gov/pub/doc/plutonium.pdf

This is a document published by Argonne National Laboratory, in a form that they call "a fact sheet".

You can see that there a thing called a radiation co-efficient chart. This provides the risk of death that can be expected by exposure to 1pCi. If you don't like reading things then you can find the table at the bottom (right hand) of page 3.

If someone was exposed to 9000^12 pCi via inhalation I think that they would die in about 3 minutes - due to suffocation. Afterall - we are talking about some kilos of material.

None of this is comic.

The extrapolation lies in the likelihood of exposure to individuals, and the error I made is that in fact we are talking about 18000 * 10^12 pCi, not 9000. At the top end we are talking 200 million human deaths from cancer due to that accident. I think it would have required a very deliberate regime to do that much killing with that much plutonium, but you get the significance of the event from that (remote) possibility.

Re:"a small leak"

[imsabbel]

Oh, bullshit calling time.

Give me a citation for your 10-^8 death rate due to 1 pCi exposure.(Btw, _what length_ of exposure? 10^6 years? Thats why anybody remotely competent uses sievert instead of curie - you know the correct unit for "exposure"...)

Cause you know, the human body radiates on its own (simple because of natural radioactive isotopes). This acticity is >100nCi, or 10^6 pCi (http://www.physics.isu.edu/radinf/natural.htm) So 1% of everybody would die by their _intrinsic_ radiation by your argument. Even before we even touch cosmic rays, ground radon, x-rays, etc.

Re:"a small leak"

[sgt101]

http://www.ead.anl.gov/pub/doc/plutonium.pdf

It's at the bottom of page 3. The risk is life time cancer mortality.

The folks at Argonne are often thought of as competent, I note that you happily use nCi in the rest of your post.

The thing is that radiation comes in different flavours. Some radiation (the stuff that plutonium majors in) can be stopped by a barrier like a bit of paper. We call this "alpha" radiation. If one breaths in a source for this radiation (for example a particle of plutonium) you are in trouble because your lungs don't have an inner paper coating. If you receive it from a decay in the atmosphere you are not in trouble because nature and evolution have equipped you with a layer of dead cells we call skin.

The trouble with the plutonium particle is that not only does it produce one decay - it sits in your lung repeatedly producing alpha particles which go on to do all sorts of mischief.

Or.... In One Word

[theshowmecanuck]

GODZILLA!

Re:Oh, great!

[afidel]

BS, the ROV Tiburon was only $6M and is MUCH more complex than you would need for a simple retrieval mission. Hell, they use ROV's for work on deep water drilling platforms all the time, they rent in the range of $10k per day plus technician travel and fees.

Well, I *have* to say this...

[gestalt_n_pepper]

It all sounds kind of fishy to me.

Oh, c'mon. Would you rather I said, "Really rad, man!"

Cheers!

Re:RTGs aren't nuclear reactors

[fnj]

RTGs aren't nuclear reactors. They rely on the decay heat of the Plutonium 238 to generate electricity. There is no fission reaction taking place in an RTG.Of course, that's not to say that Plutonium isn't nasty in and of itself.

Actually, it *is* grammatically truly a kind of nuclear reactor.

http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2547780&cid=38193156

Re:Oh, great!

[marcosdumay]

You have the retrieval mission budgeted, great. Now how much will the search missions cost?

Of Course NASA Will Retrieve It

[NotSanguine]

They just need to ask Aquaman to go get it.

Re:The Mars-96 Plutonium 238 is MUCH more worrisom

[Forbman]

OMG! 200 grams? That's like... not going to worry about it.

Bond plot?

[notKevinJohn]

How has the recovery and development of this plutonium into a weapon NOT been featured as the plot of a James Bond movie?

Re:Bond plot?

[gmhowell]

Not entirely unlike Thunderball.

Re:terrorist may want it

[JSBiff]

I wonder how many terrorists we can get to drown themselves trying to retrieve it?

I'm seriously not worried about terrorists retrieving it that far underwater.

Re:Risk vs. Hydrogen Bombs set off in the atmosphe

[JSBiff]

"We used to just set off fission and fusion bombs in the air and on the ground"

And under the sea. . .

Re:Oh, great!

[Jarik C-Bol]

to be fair, at those depths, it'll be the only thing that is that warm, holding that still. Hard to miss really.

Maybe

[databaseadmin]

I'm a nuclear engineer.

These things are not cheap. We have recovered one from the ocean floor before to fly it on a later mission. (albeit, the relative shallows of the florida coast.) If its possible to build a remote sub that could find it, I would bet the cost of recovery would be less than the cost of manufacture. (radar, sonar? how many right angles are on that thing? HOW would you find it?)

Its not dangerous. PU-238 cannot be used to make weapons.

Ref:
http://www.ne.doe.gov/space/neSpace2c.html
---
SNAP-19B2

Nimbus-B-1

Meteorological

18-May-68
Status: Mission was aborted because of range safety destruct. RTG heat sources recovered and recycled.
---

Re:Maybe

[mnslinky]

I thought you were a databaseadmin?!??!? WHICH IS IT?!?!

I am so confused.

Re:Maybe

[Shadowmist]

I'm a nuclear engineer.

These things are not cheap. We have recovered one from the ocean floor before to fly it on a later mission. (albeit, the relative shallows of the florida coast.) If its possible to build a remote sub that could find it, I would bet the cost of recovery would be less than the cost of manufacture. (radar, sonar? how many right angles are on that thing? HOW would you find it?)

Its not dangerous. PU-238 cannot be used to make weapons.

Ref: http://www.ne.doe.gov/space/neSpace2c.html --- SNAP-19B2

Nimbus-B-1

Meteorological

18-May-68 Status: Mission was aborted because of range safety destruct. RTG heat sources recovered and recycled. ---

As a nuclear engineer, you'd also realise that as an RTG, it's had over 40 years of radioactive decay, so reclaiming it for reuse is not a terribly viable option given how many half lives have passed since then.

Re:terrorist may want it

[mug funky]

yes, we need to post the GPS coords and a bogus schematic for a dirty bomb on trrrst websites, then watch them all drown themselves.

Re:Oh, great!

[camperdave]

Actually, the Tonga Trench is a subduction zone, where one tectonic plate is being forced down beneath another one, at rates of up to 24 cm/year. If the RTG landed in the right spot, it could be over 9 metres under the sea bed by now.

Re:This sounds like a job for

[camperdave]

...Or maybe Gordon Tracy or Troy Tempest.

Re:Oh, great!

[Jarik C-Bol]

seems like that'd be fine also. At that rate, it'll be into the mantle in about 420 years, (the crust is around 10km thick there as far as i can tell, so at 24cm per year thats a little over 416 years, and we buffer for a bad landing spot by few years because hey, we're imagining things) and we won't have to worry about it anymore.

Plutonium doesn't radiate.

[flyingfsck]

Plutonium has a half life of 25000 years. It radiates a little more than steel. You can hold it in your hand, or even swallow a small piece of Plutonium. It will have no effect on you. The only danger a small piece of Plutonium presents is that it may be classed as a choking hazard to Americans.

Re:Risk vs. Hydrogen Bombs set off in the atmosphe

[DanielRavenNest]

People also forget that the oceans are 3 parts per billion Uranium. So that column of water 1x1x6 km deep on top of the sunken RTG contains 18 tons of Uranium. Kind of puts it in perspective.

Re:On Clarity

[MJMullinII]

The plutonium, like the astronauts, apparently survived reentry and came to rest with what remained of the lunar module in the Tonga Trench south of Fiji, approximately 6-9 kilometers underwater

Those poor, drowned bastards...

LMFAO!

Meanwhile deep in the ocean....

[tjstork]

a 500 foot tall prehistoric monster slumbers, bathed in deadly radiation oozing from the nearby module, and transforms. It shifts as it sleeps, and rolls over onto the blocky module, which awakes it. Annoyed, the monster rises to the surface, then towards land, towards a sleeping Japan, unaware of the newest and greatest calamity about to visit them:

GODZILLA! ( and worse, with the cheezy Raymond Burr splices added in )

Re:A small leak indeed.

[sgt101]

Ahh ha! You have failed to understand that all radiation is not equal, and also mechanisms of exposure are not equal.

If someone made a bet with me that I should swallow a pellet of plutonium in a plastic case or something bad would happen to a loved one, I would swallow the plutonium and trust to my digestion and the container. If I had to breath in the plutonium in a dust instead I would still do it (for love) but I think it would be the death of me.

So - looking at the radiation released in total : has there been a massive increase in deaths due to atmospheric testing. Of course, we can't say so because there is no control and there are many confounding factors. But I offer the following for consideration.

1. Atmospheric testing was a massive propaganda tool and an excellent way of developing weapons. It is now banned and never done even by lunatics like the North Koreans. Why?

2. Cancer rates have increased substantially in the period - this is not evidence of causality, but if they had not then we could say that it would be evidence of absence of causality.

3. There is not much mention of this ever in the media.

4. There is not much to be done about it now.

it always amuses me

[circletimessquare]

to hear people talk about terrorists as if their actions are always perfectly reasonable

if their actions were always perfectly reasonable, the surprise killing of civilians wouldn't be on their todo lists

don't assume the motives and thought processes of people to whom mass murder makes sense is plausible and predictable

assume they'll do rash, unreasonable, and stupid things. because they already are