*chuckle* I realize you're joking, but that's not all that far from the truth. A GCNR could be powered by hydrogen, oxygen, water, methane, xenon, and a host of other gaseous compounds or items that can be electrolyzed back into gases. After all, a nuclear power plant (even a small one) provides more than enough power to manufacture all kinds of raw materials. Can you imagine a "sucks in CO2 on this end, produces rocket fuel on this end" machine? It's actually pretty simple to build!
Simple. Mozilla and IE are compatible. I've been doing JavaScript for both of them, and when something goes wrong in IE, there's no good way to figure it out. So I launch Mozilla, bring up Venkman, and find the error lickety-split. Way better than IE's debugger with its imaginary line numbers.
In any case, Orion was dirty. GCNRs are not. Got it? Good. BTW, the Sun is a "dirty" fission/fusion reactor that's only a few billion times more massive than our entire planet. If I were you, a few space nukes would be the least of my concerns.
Was that the "Clean" Nuclear rocket with the fission reactor inside?
Yes, that one. If you're not releasing radiation and waste into the atmosphere, it's clean. Or would you like to argue that the by simply existing, fission reactors are dirty?
And BTW, once we're in space, it doesn't matter how much radiation and waste we give off. We still can't outdo the amount put out by the Sun or contained within asteroids and meteorites.
If we used nuclear engines, we wouldn't HAVE to leave them there. Not only would be able to build high powered, fuel-efficient rockets, but we'd be able to refuel them from Mar's own materials. Plus we could build a Mars Shuttle for orbital to surface commutes. Didn't anyone read the article on Clean Nuclear Launches a few days ago?
Wow. You're just freaked out about this stuff, aren't you? Let me put it this way: Plutonium is what we call an "Alpha Emitter". Alpha emitters emit, predictably, alpha radiation. Alpha radiation consists of slow moving protons. Now here's the kicker: Alpha radiation poses no external risk to human beings. The stuff is so powerless that it can be shielded against with a sheet of paper. The particles can't even penetrate the outer layer of dead skin cells.
Plutonium only puts out gamma radiation when it spontaneously fissions. Now when you look at the fact that spontaneous fission is rare, and each event only puts out a handful of particles, you'll find that having plutonium around is no worse than all the Uranium contained in your backyard. (Uranium is an extremely common material. Even more common than nickel or tin.)
Plutonium does pose a danger when inhaled however. If a small particle gets lodged in your soft tissues, the alpha particles will be able to penetrate enough to possibly cause cancer. Don't worry though. Ingestion will not lead to plutonium in your system, and inhalation of plutonium is very difficult. With an atomic number of 94, it doesn't break up very easily (read: it has to be machined) and it doesn't stay in the air very long when it is (too heavy).
There is an ever increasing amount of it from Chernobil, atmosphere testing, power plant leaks, nuclear satellites crashing etc, etc.
Correction, there's an ever DECREASING amount of it in our food and water supplies. First off, the chemicals came from the earth, so it's not like they're somehow foreign to the ecosystem.
Secondly, Chernobyl released fallout only in the immediate vicinity of the plant. Anyone who told you that all of Europe was contaminated, lied. In fact, the remaining three reactors continued to run for years afterwards.
Thirdly, atmospheric testing was banned forty years ago. The fallout from those tests has been declining ever since.
Fourthly, all the leaks from all the nuclear plants in the world don't add up to anywhere near the amount of uranium put out by a single coal-burning plant. Guess what? Most coal deposits are Uranium rich.
Fifth, "nuclear satellites" have not been a major contributor to nuclear waste. The US only burned up one (intentionally) before realizing the public's fear. After that, RTGs were encased in strong black box type devices. When a satellite crashes, they simply dive and recover the black box. In some instances, they even reuse the RTG. If you want to talk to someone who doesn't care if they send unshielded RTGs or reactors into space (the US has never sent a reactor), talk to the Russians. They've been exceedingly careless with nuclear technology. Still, not a single person has been killed by them burning up Plutonium in the atmosphere.
Do some research. Once you understand nuclear technology, you won't be so afraid of it. The media has tried to tell us that nuclear technology makes things glow in the dark, produces mutant monsters, and causes reactors to blow up like nuclear bombs. None of this is true! In fact, most of the chemicals in your kitchen cabinet pose more of a threat to your health than anything nuclear.
BTW, your total exposure is not accumulative. Your body is used to radiation (gets it every day) and repairs against it. The problem comes in when you are exposed to more radiation than your body can repair. About 100 REMs per year is considered safe for the average human. Some medical treatments exceed this by a large margin. Old style X-Ray used to give 10 REMs per X-Ray, but new digital machines only give about 100 milliREMs.
Besides, where were you when the wackos were complaining that Cassini was going to kill us all and eat our children? It was only a few years ago, and it was BIG news.
It's not hard. RTGs are simply plutonium encased in a thermo-coupler. You get about 75W per 2.5 pounds. And with an atomic number of 94, 2.5 pounds is very small bar.
SRGs are more efficient, and get about 55 watts per 600 grams of fuel. Given that an SRG is simply a small Stirling engine, there should be no difficulty in fitting one inside a rover.
Its argueably one of the most toxic substances around, but its radioactivity probably wouldn't kill you.
When it comes to dangerous chemicals, Plutonium is one of the safest. You can even ingest some without permanent harm. The only time a danger is posed is when it's ground up and inhaled.
So unless you got hit with scrapnel from the lander or say, your sandwich did, you're probably pretty safe.
Correct.
(which is in the form of plutonium oxide i think)
Usually Plutonium Oxide is used, but not always. Plutonium Oxide is the "burned" form of Plutonium much in the same way that water is the "burned" form of hydrogen.
Radioactive fallout from 50s test is probably still far higher than any trace amounts that'd be found after such an event.
Do an EPA search on SR-90 and you'll find some wonderful figures about how much we eat and drink each year. It might be fun to point it out to an environmentalist wacko and watch them go chicken little on you.:-)
My points were an attempt to point out that nuclear power is not the Earth killer people think it is. Sure, you can say "in this situation", but it doesn't change the fact that nuclear is not the most dangerous form of energy in existence.
And I didn't bother converting to joules (where 1 joule = 1 watt second) because it would have simply clouded the issue. The issue being that energy is energy, and the resulting force is the same no matter what it's powered by. Another way of putting it was that the Atomic Bomb researchers would give the figures of destructive force in the equivalent number of pounds or tons of TNT. You don't hear anyone complaining about TNT being powerful enough to destroy the planet.
This is a gross misrepresentation of the facts. The explosion was due to stupid negligence, not malice.
The reactor design wasn't great, but the technicians on site weren't following operating procedure either. They removed control rods, cut wires, etc, etc, etc. Since these guys weren't Nuclear Physicists, they really didn't understand what the consequences of their actions would be. Combine that with the fact that it wasn't even a Russian design (stolen from the US) and you have a recipe for disaster.
Saying that they did everything they could to blow it up may be stretching it a little, but it's not off the mark.
...evaluating your Base64 encoder for my wife's recipe database software. When I saw the license tho, I decided it wasn't worth the hassle. I ended up ripping an encoder from some apache software.
Sorry, but how does a heavy chunck of plutonium remove the need for a rocket? I am not sure how an RTG could get you off the earth.
It doesn't. A reactor does (see Tuesday's story on a Nuclear drive). I was just pointing out that nuclear is the only good solution for space exploration.
Also I think there are problems with nuclear solutions other then just fear. Don't under play the risks, plutoniun can be highly toxic. Wastes have to be dealt with even in space.
Plutonium *can* be dangerous, but so can most of the materials used in making batteries. Anything high energy has dangers associated with it. Even rocket fuel has all kinds of nasty chemicals mixed in that you don't want to breath. I've had people tell me that plutonium is the most toxic chemical known to man. Not only is that not true, but plutonium is only toxic when ground up and inhaled. Otherwise it poses no danger whatsoever. You can even safely hold it in your hand.
Why was this AC marked a troll? He's quite correct that Plutonium can be dangerous when inhaled. Several other threads have discussed the difficulties in this, but that doesn't make him a troll.
If it hit the eastern seaboard, it *could* be a problem. It's still doubtful though. Plutonium is such heavy stuff that it's pretty hard to inhale. There were a lot more dangerous chemicals in Columbia, and as far as I know, no one died.
But then again, this is all about mitigated risk. A rocket on an escape velocity is very different than a rocket on a retrograde orbit velocity. An escape velocity rocket wouldn't have the proper trajectory to fail over an area other than the Atlantic. A rocket on retrograde orbital trajectory could come down at an unpredictable location. However, that location would still have to be on the longitude that the rocket was launched along, so risks can be minimized by the choice of longitude.
I am of course assuming that NASA is doing their job and destroys the rocket if it veers from its planned course.
Do you mean if they were detonated above the earth's crust... where we are? I'm glad to hear their won't be any damage to the earth's precious mantle.
Yes, where we are. The original poster suggested (even if it was a hyperbole) that a tiny RTG could destroy the entire world. I included that point for the purpose of pointing out otherwise. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. We've gotten quite good at finding ways to kill ourselves, but we still have very little effect on nature as a whole.
My physics book didn't have any formulas for destructive or constructive force. Is there a physical constant I'm not aware of there, Mr Limbaugh?
Now you're just being ridiculous. "destructive" refers to how force is applied. Using it to create electricity is "constructive" use while using it to blow shit up is "destructive" use. Would you like a dictionary?
Whew - I was worried about the billions of people off the site.
Allow me to rephrase: The only people killed as a direct result of the Chernobyl disaster were 40 people who were onsite at the time. No one was killed offsite, but Russia's failure to cleanup from the disaster produced 200 more indirect deaths.
I'm so thankful for you clear-headed people who can clear it up for the rest of us retards. I do so enjoy being patronized.
I do believe I was talking to the original poster. Are you him? Or do you agree with the assertion that a few pounds of plutonium could destroy the world? If either of those are true, then that line was meant for you. If neither is true, then you're being a jackass for the sake of being a jackass.
And don't take babbling right-wingers at face-value either.
Fair enough. Research what I've said. You'll find it to be quite accurate. Or was the whole point to stop people from thinking? Maybe it's a left-wing plot to keep people uninformed so they'll keep getting snared by welfare! Or MAYBE you're just spouting off for no good reason.
I'm actually well aware of what they did to the thing. The problem was that the communist system paid everyone the same amount of money for the same job. Thus there was really no such thing as "advancement".
You can find all kinds of "hacks" in the Russian culture where they tried to extract more money from the government. The black market was one, but a more common one was shows like Ghostia es Budishva (sp? Hard to translate Cyrillics.), i.e. Girl from the Future. If you've ever watched that very popular show (and I've sat through all six hours of it) you'll note how much time the actors spend walking through hallways or exploring nature preserves. This is because the government was paying based on the length of the final product. Longer show == more money.
Actually, that's wrong. IBM's contract specifies that original code added to Unix by IBM is IBM's property. SCO has been ignoring this clause by trying to redefine what "derivative" means. Unfortunately (for them), there's a huge case history of derivative works that have already established that SCO can't redefine derivative to mean what they want it to mean.
Could you kindly define RTG? Is that some sort of reactor?
Radioisotope Thermal Generator
If you punch it into google, you'll find that it takes the heat from plutonium or strontium-90 and turns it into usable electricity. There are no moving parts and no fission or fusion reaction. It's just a lump of rock (actually metal) that gets very hot.
SRG stands for Stirling Radioisotope Generator
These are more efficient power sources that use the heat from radioisotopes to power a stirling engine (the precursor to the combustion engine). They produce several times the power of an RTG with the same amount of hot rock.
If it happens there will be widespread death, undoubtedly.
Actually, it's quite doubtful. Russia burned up an RTG over Canada and all that happened was that Russia had to pay for the cleanup. Nobody died from the incident.
Which if you consider the number of black boxes recovered from airplanes, is a pretty safe assumption. Even if it isn't, Plutonium is too heavy to float. Remember, it has an atomic number of 94. There's no question that it will sink.
Even if we assume that it somehow floats to shore, plutonium isn't dangerous unless inhaled. And that would assume air-born dust particles anyway. Which, given the atomic number of plutonium, won't be air-born for long.
I'd be more worried about the Uranium raining down from meteorites than any risk from plutonium RTGs.
Slashdot Mirror
Your teeth! They're brigher... but not exactly whiter... What is it? They're glowing! What is it?
Uranium
With a Mr. Fusion?
*chuckle* I realize you're joking, but that's not all that far from the truth. A GCNR could be powered by hydrogen, oxygen, water, methane, xenon, and a host of other gaseous compounds or items that can be electrolyzed back into gases. After all, a nuclear power plant (even a small one) provides more than enough power to manufacture all kinds of raw materials. Can you imagine a "sucks in CO2 on this end, produces rocket fuel on this end" machine? It's actually pretty simple to build!
Ouch, that's gotta hurt. At least it isn't the Megawatt controller, or the Gigawatt controller. "Guaranteed to turn you into a smoking crisp!"
Simple. Mozilla and IE are compatible. I've been doing JavaScript for both of them, and when something goes wrong in IE, there's no good way to figure it out. So I launch Mozilla, bring up Venkman, and find the error lickety-split. Way better than IE's debugger with its imaginary line numbers.
Congratulation dude! YOU FAILED IT!
In any case, Orion was dirty. GCNRs are not. Got it? Good. BTW, the Sun is a "dirty" fission/fusion reactor that's only a few billion times more massive than our entire planet. If I were you, a few space nukes would be the least of my concerns.
Was that the "Clean" Nuclear rocket with the fission reactor inside?
Yes, that one. If you're not releasing radiation and waste into the atmosphere, it's clean. Or would you like to argue that the by simply existing, fission reactors are dirty?
And BTW, once we're in space, it doesn't matter how much radiation and waste we give off. We still can't outdo the amount put out by the Sun or contained within asteroids and meteorites.
If we used nuclear engines, we wouldn't HAVE to leave them there. Not only would be able to build high powered, fuel-efficient rockets, but we'd be able to refuel them from Mar's own materials. Plus we could build a Mars Shuttle for orbital to surface commutes. Didn't anyone read the article on Clean Nuclear Launches a few days ago?
That was in three public betas before being released?
The 2.5 kernel? In public beta? I seriously doubt that.
Wow. You're just freaked out about this stuff, aren't you? Let me put it this way: Plutonium is what we call an "Alpha Emitter". Alpha emitters emit, predictably, alpha radiation. Alpha radiation consists of slow moving protons. Now here's the kicker: Alpha radiation poses no external risk to human beings. The stuff is so powerless that it can be shielded against with a sheet of paper. The particles can't even penetrate the outer layer of dead skin cells.
Plutonium only puts out gamma radiation when it spontaneously fissions. Now when you look at the fact that spontaneous fission is rare, and each event only puts out a handful of particles, you'll find that having plutonium around is no worse than all the Uranium contained in your backyard. (Uranium is an extremely common material. Even more common than nickel or tin.)
Plutonium does pose a danger when inhaled however. If a small particle gets lodged in your soft tissues, the alpha particles will be able to penetrate enough to possibly cause cancer. Don't worry though. Ingestion will not lead to plutonium in your system, and inhalation of plutonium is very difficult. With an atomic number of 94, it doesn't break up very easily (read: it has to be machined) and it doesn't stay in the air very long when it is (too heavy).
There is an ever increasing amount of it from Chernobil, atmosphere testing, power plant leaks, nuclear satellites crashing etc, etc.
Correction, there's an ever DECREASING amount of it in our food and water supplies. First off, the chemicals came from the earth, so it's not like they're somehow foreign to the ecosystem.
Secondly, Chernobyl released fallout only in the immediate vicinity of the plant. Anyone who told you that all of Europe was contaminated, lied. In fact, the remaining three reactors continued to run for years afterwards.
Thirdly, atmospheric testing was banned forty years ago. The fallout from those tests has been declining ever since.
Fourthly, all the leaks from all the nuclear plants in the world don't add up to anywhere near the amount of uranium put out by a single coal-burning plant. Guess what? Most coal deposits are Uranium rich.
Fifth, "nuclear satellites" have not been a major contributor to nuclear waste. The US only burned up one (intentionally) before realizing the public's fear. After that, RTGs were encased in strong black box type devices. When a satellite crashes, they simply dive and recover the black box. In some instances, they even reuse the RTG. If you want to talk to someone who doesn't care if they send unshielded RTGs or reactors into space (the US has never sent a reactor), talk to the Russians. They've been exceedingly careless with nuclear technology. Still, not a single person has been killed by them burning up Plutonium in the atmosphere.
Do some research. Once you understand nuclear technology, you won't be so afraid of it. The media has tried to tell us that nuclear technology makes things glow in the dark, produces mutant monsters, and causes reactors to blow up like nuclear bombs. None of this is true! In fact, most of the chemicals in your kitchen cabinet pose more of a threat to your health than anything nuclear.
BTW, your total exposure is not accumulative. Your body is used to radiation (gets it every day) and repairs against it. The problem comes in when you are exposed to more radiation than your body can repair. About 100 REMs per year is considered safe for the average human. Some medical treatments exceed this by a large margin. Old style X-Ray used to give 10 REMs per X-Ray, but new digital machines only give about 100 milliREMs.
Do you have any or is it just your prejudice?
A little googling gets you a lot.
Besides, where were you when the wackos were complaining that Cassini was going to kill us all and eat our children? It was only a few years ago, and it was BIG news.
How would they fit an SRG onto a rover?
It's not hard. RTGs are simply plutonium encased in a thermo-coupler. You get about 75W per 2.5 pounds. And with an atomic number of 94, 2.5 pounds is very small bar.
SRGs are more efficient, and get about 55 watts per 600 grams of fuel. Given that an SRG is simply a small Stirling engine, there should be no difficulty in fitting one inside a rover.
"First he made me laugh, then he made me angry, then he made me think." --Unknown (anyone know?)
Your point about plutonium isn't really relevant.
:-)
Which one?
Its argueably one of the most toxic substances around, but its radioactivity probably wouldn't kill you.
When it comes to dangerous chemicals, Plutonium is one of the safest. You can even ingest some without permanent harm. The only time a danger is posed is when it's ground up and inhaled.
So unless you got hit with scrapnel from the lander or say, your sandwich did, you're probably pretty safe.
Correct.
(which is in the form of plutonium oxide i think)
Usually Plutonium Oxide is used, but not always. Plutonium Oxide is the "burned" form of Plutonium much in the same way that water is the "burned" form of hydrogen.
Radioactive fallout from 50s test is probably still far higher than any trace amounts that'd be found after such an event.
Do an EPA search on SR-90 and you'll find some wonderful figures about how much we eat and drink each year. It might be fun to point it out to an environmentalist wacko and watch them go chicken little on you.
My points were an attempt to point out that nuclear power is not the Earth killer people think it is. Sure, you can say "in this situation", but it doesn't change the fact that nuclear is not the most dangerous form of energy in existence.
And I didn't bother converting to joules (where 1 joule = 1 watt second) because it would have simply clouded the issue. The issue being that energy is energy, and the resulting force is the same no matter what it's powered by. Another way of putting it was that the Atomic Bomb researchers would give the figures of destructive force in the equivalent number of pounds or tons of TNT. You don't hear anyone complaining about TNT being powerful enough to destroy the planet.
This is a gross misrepresentation of the facts. The explosion was due to stupid negligence, not malice.
The reactor design wasn't great, but the technicians on site weren't following operating procedure either. They removed control rods, cut wires, etc, etc, etc. Since these guys weren't Nuclear Physicists, they really didn't understand what the consequences of their actions would be. Combine that with the fact that it wasn't even a Russian design (stolen from the US) and you have a recipe for disaster.
Saying that they did everything they could to blow it up may be stretching it a little, but it's not off the mark.
...evaluating your Base64 encoder for my wife's recipe database software. When I saw the license tho, I decided it wasn't worth the hassle. I ended up ripping an encoder from some apache software.
LOL! Looks like Nader was just a litte timid. ;-)
Sorry, but how does a heavy chunck of plutonium remove the need for a rocket? I am not sure how an RTG could get you off the earth.
It doesn't. A reactor does (see Tuesday's story on a Nuclear drive). I was just pointing out that nuclear is the only good solution for space exploration.
Also I think there are problems with nuclear solutions other then just fear. Don't under play the risks, plutoniun can be highly toxic. Wastes have to be dealt with even in space.
Plutonium *can* be dangerous, but so can most of the materials used in making batteries. Anything high energy has dangers associated with it. Even rocket fuel has all kinds of nasty chemicals mixed in that you don't want to breath. I've had people tell me that plutonium is the most toxic chemical known to man. Not only is that not true, but plutonium is only toxic when ground up and inhaled. Otherwise it poses no danger whatsoever. You can even safely hold it in your hand.
Why was this AC marked a troll? He's quite correct that Plutonium can be dangerous when inhaled. Several other threads have discussed the difficulties in this, but that doesn't make him a troll.
If it hit the eastern seaboard, it *could* be a problem. It's still doubtful though. Plutonium is such heavy stuff that it's pretty hard to inhale. There were a lot more dangerous chemicals in Columbia, and as far as I know, no one died.
But then again, this is all about mitigated risk. A rocket on an escape velocity is very different than a rocket on a retrograde orbit velocity. An escape velocity rocket wouldn't have the proper trajectory to fail over an area other than the Atlantic. A rocket on retrograde orbital trajectory could come down at an unpredictable location. However, that location would still have to be on the longitude that the rocket was launched along, so risks can be minimized by the choice of longitude.
I am of course assuming that NASA is doing their job and destroys the rocket if it veers from its planned course.
Do you mean if they were detonated above the earth's crust ... where we are? I'm glad to hear their won't be any damage to the earth's precious mantle.
Yes, where we are. The original poster suggested (even if it was a hyperbole) that a tiny RTG could destroy the entire world. I included that point for the purpose of pointing out otherwise. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. We've gotten quite good at finding ways to kill ourselves, but we still have very little effect on nature as a whole.
My physics book didn't have any formulas for destructive or constructive force. Is there a physical constant I'm not aware of there, Mr Limbaugh?
Now you're just being ridiculous. "destructive" refers to how force is applied. Using it to create electricity is "constructive" use while using it to blow shit up is "destructive" use. Would you like a dictionary?
Whew - I was worried about the billions of people off the site.
Allow me to rephrase: The only people killed as a direct result of the Chernobyl disaster were 40 people who were onsite at the time. No one was killed offsite, but Russia's failure to cleanup from the disaster produced 200 more indirect deaths.
I'm so thankful for you clear-headed people who can clear it up for the rest of us retards. I do so enjoy being patronized.
I do believe I was talking to the original poster. Are you him? Or do you agree with the assertion that a few pounds of plutonium could destroy the world? If either of those are true, then that line was meant for you. If neither is true, then you're being a jackass for the sake of being a jackass.
And don't take babbling right-wingers at face-value either.
Fair enough. Research what I've said. You'll find it to be quite accurate. Or was the whole point to stop people from thinking? Maybe it's a left-wing plot to keep people uninformed so they'll keep getting snared by welfare! Or MAYBE you're just spouting off for no good reason.
I'm actually well aware of what they did to the thing. The problem was that the communist system paid everyone the same amount of money for the same job. Thus there was really no such thing as "advancement".
You can find all kinds of "hacks" in the Russian culture where they tried to extract more money from the government. The black market was one, but a more common one was shows like Ghostia es Budishva (sp? Hard to translate Cyrillics.), i.e. Girl from the Future. If you've ever watched that very popular show (and I've sat through all six hours of it) you'll note how much time the actors spend walking through hallways or exploring nature preserves. This is because the government was paying based on the length of the final product. Longer show == more money.
Actually, that's wrong. IBM's contract specifies that original code added to Unix by IBM is IBM's property. SCO has been ignoring this clause by trying to redefine what "derivative" means. Unfortunately (for them), there's a huge case history of derivative works that have already established that SCO can't redefine derivative to mean what they want it to mean.
Ergo, SCO is smoking crack.
Could you kindly define RTG? Is that some sort of reactor?
Radioisotope Thermal Generator
If you punch it into google, you'll find that it takes the heat from plutonium or strontium-90 and turns it into usable electricity. There are no moving parts and no fission or fusion reaction. It's just a lump of rock (actually metal) that gets very hot.
SRG stands for Stirling Radioisotope Generator
These are more efficient power sources that use the heat from radioisotopes to power a stirling engine (the precursor to the combustion engine). They produce several times the power of an RTG with the same amount of hot rock.
If it happens there will be widespread death, undoubtedly.
Actually, it's quite doubtful. Russia burned up an RTG over Canada and all that happened was that Russia had to pay for the cleanup. Nobody died from the incident.
Assuming it's in one piece.
Which if you consider the number of black boxes recovered from airplanes, is a pretty safe assumption. Even if it isn't, Plutonium is too heavy to float. Remember, it has an atomic number of 94. There's no question that it will sink.
Even if we assume that it somehow floats to shore, plutonium isn't dangerous unless inhaled. And that would assume air-born dust particles anyway. Which, given the atomic number of plutonium, won't be air-born for long.
I'd be more worried about the Uranium raining down from meteorites than any risk from plutonium RTGs.