Radioactive material disposed of in Louisiana sinkhole – cover up?
Louisiana sinkhole radiation abuse and cover up continue The Examiner, NOVEMBER 30, 2012 BY: DEBORAH DUPRE As human rights to health abuses continue in the giant Louisiana sinkhole area, with its dangerous radiation levels released for over four months, state officials say they are investigating how Texas Brine Co. LLC managed the naturally occurring radioactive material there and whether it illegally disposed of the “non-dangerous” radioactive material under Bayou Corne and Grand Bayou communities that are above the Napoleonville Dome in the mid-1990s. Radiation, a grave human right to health violation at Louisiana sinkhole
After four months of dangerous levels of radiation being released at Louisiana’s giant sinkhole, impacting lives of hundreds and perhaps thousands of people, finger-pointing has begun regarding whose fault it is that the naturally occurring radioactive material (NORM) is there.
NORM is a common petrochemical industrial complex waste problem potentially negatively impacting the human right to health.
NORM is a frequent byproduct of oil and gas drilling processes. It creates wastes that industry has often dumped improperly – in water, on land, by burning and in “accidents” – to prevent storing it illegally.
Oil and gas drilling processes can concentrate naturally occurring radioactive isotopes underground at various levels, sometimes posing health threats, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Brine production, such as in Texas Brine’s operations, are included in those that can concentrate NORM. Some oil and gas service companies are contracted to store NORM for oil and gas companies. Texas Brine is an oil and gas service company.
Louisiana’s Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) confirmed last week that a 1979 state statute prohibited disposing NORM in large underground salt deposits like Napoleonville Dome until 1999 legislative changes made such disposal legal.
“What we’re going to do is investigate this thing the best we can with the information from 1995 and move forward as appropriate,” said DEQ spokesman Rodney Mallett.
In August 1995, the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) Office of Conservation did not object when Texas Brine considered putting up to 20 cubic feet of NORM in an underground company cavern in the Napoleonville Dome and in another salt dome in Lafourche Parish, according to DEQ and state Office of Conservation records.
It is unclear if Texas Brine followed through on those plans, according to the Advocate.
Texas Brine officials said in a statement last week that they did not put NORM into its caverns but that it remains onsite under a standing license that DEQ gave to it……..
As early as August, a non-government group, Louisiana Environmental Action Network, began urging Bayou Corne sinkhole area residents to use a new record log. At that time, a veteran radiation expert said Louisiana environmental officials were “in denial” over hazards posed by elevated radium levels that were actually fifteen times higher than the state limit, a “worst nightmare coming true” in the sinkhole vicinity, according to environmental attorney Stuart Smith.
Stanley Waligora, a New Mexico-based radiation protection consultant and leading authority on health risks of NORM confirmed that radium levels at Bayou Corne’s sinkhole are not within safe limits, but instead, roughly 15 times higher than the state’s acceptable level, Smith had said. The information about radium had been buried in a state news release, had been poorly written, and had gone “out of its way to downplay the results,” Smith had said.
In 1979, the state Legislature prohibited disposing “radioactive waste or other radioactive material of any nature” in salt domes. That la took effect Jan. 1, 1980 during controversy over U.S. Department of Energy plans to store high-level radioactive waste, such as from nuclear power plants, in salt domes.
The salt dome ban for radioactive waste remains. In 1999, however, the Louisiana Legislature exempted oil and gas exploration and production wastes, including NORM, from the statutory definition of “radioactive waste,” DEQ officials said.
Before that, NORM was under the definition of “radioactive waste” and, therefore, prohibited from salt dome disposal in 1995, DEQ officials said in an email to the Advocate…….
Sonny Cranch, spokesman for Texas Brine, said last week that officials “misspoke” then in their attempt to respond to questions about NORM and that it was never put in the cavern.
“This is a very confusing saga — when you get to the end of the (Advocate) piece, it’s unclear just what exactly Texas Brine did or didn’t bury at the sinkhole,” Smith stated in his blog post Tuesday. “But that is the broader point — neither the company nor state regulators have been clear about has or hasn’t been taking place at this site for years.”Smith added, “And they haven’t been either honest or forthcoming with the people of Louisiana now, in this hour of crisis for displaced families and for the worried residents still in the area.”
What is also confusing to some is just how dangerous NORM is, a confusion caused by what Smith refers to as corporate and government dose dancing.
Dose dancing, a radiation psychological operation citizens need to know: Even small radiation doses that are harmful
Low-level, even natural radiation is potentially damaging, according to scientific studies, including a newly released study report.
Smith refers to corporate and government hiding the truth about radiation as “dose dancing.”
“‘Dose dancing’ is a load of baloney,” Smith stated Tuesday. “My experience as a lawyer has shown me that even exposure to levels of radiation that are considered low can in fact be harmful. And increasingly there is scientific research backing this up. http://www.examiner.com/article/louisiana-sinkhole-radiation-abuse-and-cover-up-continue
Is USA’s drone weapons use legal?
America’s Use of Drones: The Legality Issue http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/01/opinion/americas-use-of-drones-the-legality-issue.html November 30, 2012 SUZANNE NOSSEL Executive Director
Amnesty International USA “Election Spurred a Move to Codify U.S. Drone Policy” (front page,
Nov. 25) raises the issue of the legality of the United States’ ever-changing drone policy.
As his first term in office draws to a close, and with a vacancy to
fill at the top of the Central Intelligence Agency, President Obama
has an opportunity to press the reset button on American drone policy.
Over the last four years the use of drones has become ever more
permissive. Lethal strikes are no longer restricted to “high-value
targets,” Guilt, not innocence, is the apparent presumption.
Administration sources have told the media that in the tribal areas of
Pakistan, men of fighting age are assumed to be combatant targets in
the absence of intelligence to the contrary. If true, this is both
unconscionable and a violation of the laws of war.
This can’t go on. American drones have taken lives in Afghanistan,
Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and the Philippines. Meaningful public review
of this most secretive of government programs is long overdue. We
don’t need a new rule book; we just need the existing rules —
international human rights and humanitarian law — to be applied.
COLEEN ROWLEY ( The writer is the retired F.B.I. agent who exposed intelligence
failures before the 9/11 attacks.)You report that President Obama is finally expressing some “wariness
of the powerful temptation drones pose to policy makers. ‘There’s a
remoteness to it that makes it tempting to think that somehow we can,
without any mess on our hands, solve vexing security problems,’ he
said.”
What an understatement of the “mess on our hands” given how 76
countries now possess drones, having discovered how cheap and easy
they are to develop and use! Whose hands will they fall into? More and
more people in foreign countries living under American drone strikes
have understandably become radicalized. Didn’t anyone consider how
they would make the perfect weapon of asymmetrical warfare?
Pandora’s box has opened wide, adding to our “vexing security
problems.” We should never have forgotten what Sir Peter Ustinov is
credited as saying: Terrorism is the poor man’s war, and war is
terrorism of the rich.
The cost of cleaning up after uranium mining and milling
The Curse of the Yellow Powder, Bacon’s Rebellion, by Rose Jenkins December 2, 2012 Is it possible to restore a landscape damaged by uranium? Ask the Navajo in New Mexico. “…….The Navajo Nation was the fourth uranium clean-up site I visited in the West.
In Cañon City, Colo., where a uranium mill shut down last year, the state of Colorado has estimated that a clean-up will cost $43 million, but it allowed the Cotter Corporation, which is responsible, to put up less than half of that amount in surety bonds, according to the Denver Post. Unless plans change, groundwater below the site will stay contaminated, leaving many private wells unusable.
Elsewhere in Colorado, the clean-up of uranium mills after the companies went bankrupt has cost taxpayers $950 million, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. At one of these sites, in Uravan, Colo., both the mill and the town around it were dismantled, buried, and permanently fenced off. That clean-up, or eradication, cost taxpayers $120 million.
The Atlas Mill, in Moab, Utah, which closed in 1984, is one of a few sites where tailings are being relocated, because contamination from them was leaching into the Colorado River, the source of drinking water for Los Angeles and other cities. A suitable repository was located just 30 miles away—but the clean-up will still cost taxpayers a solid $1 billion…….” http://www.baconsrebellion.com/2012/12/the-curse-of-the-yellow-powder.html
USA- Pentagon expanding its global spy network
Pentagon reportedly planning to double size of its worldwide spy network
More than 1,600 new Defense Department agents will collect intelligence and report findings to CIA, said to be overstretched Dominic Rushe in New Yorkguardian.co.uk, 2 December 2012 The US military plans to send hundreds more spies overseas as part of an ambitious plan that will more than double the size of its espionage network, it was reported Sunday.
The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the Pentagon’s military intelligence unit, is aiming to recruit 1,600 intelligence “collectors” – up from the several hundred overseas agents it has employed in recent years, sources told The Washington Post.
Combined with the enormous growth in the CIA since 9/11 attacks, the recruitment drive will create an unprecedented spy network. “The stars have been aligning on this for a while,” an anonymous former senior US military official involved in planning the DIA transformation told the Post.
The news is likely to heighten concerns about the accountability of the US military’s clandestine programmes amid mounting concerns about the CIA-controlled drone programme.
The United Nations said last month that it intends to investigate civilian deaths from drone strikes. The US has refused to even acknowledge the existence of a drone programme in Pakistan. The US military is not subject to the same congressional notification requirements as the CIA, creating yet more potential controversies….. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/dec/02/pentagon-double-spy-network-cia?CMP=twt_gu
The truth about low level radiation is covered up by governments and corporations
Louisiana sinkhole radiation abuse and cover up continue The Examiner, NOVEMBER 30, 2012 BY: DEBORAH DUPRE Low-level, even natural radiation is potentially damaging, according to scientific studies, including a newly released study report.
Smith refers to corporate and government hiding the truth about radiation as “dose dancing.”
“‘Dose dancing’ is a load of baloney,” Smith stated Tuesday. “My experience as a lawyer has shown me that even exposure to levels of radiation that are considered low can in fact be harmful. And increasingly there is scientific research backing this up.
The latest study on this subject is what Smith calls “a bombshell.” He quotes about the new study:
“Even the very lowest levels of radiation are harmful to life, scientists have concluded in the Cambridge Philosophical Society’s journal Biological Reviews. Reporting the results of a wide-ranging analysis of 46 peer-reviewed studies published over the past 40 years, researchers from the University of South Carolina and the University of Paris-Sud found that variation in low-level, natural background radiation was found to have small, but highly statistically significant, negative effects on DNA as well as several measures of health.
The review is a meta-analysis of studies of locations around the globe that have very high natural background radiation as a result of the minerals in the ground there, including Ramsar, Iran, Mombasa, Kenya, Lodeve, France, and Yangjiang, China. These, and a few other geographic locations with natural background radiation that greatly exceeds normal amounts, have long drawn scientists intent on understanding the effects of radiation on life. Individual studies by themselves, however, have often only shown small effects on small populations from which conclusive statistical conclusions were difficult to draw.
Smith says that what these researchers learned “is alarming indeed”:
The scientists reported significant negative effects in a range of categories, including immunology, physiology, mutation and disease occurrence. The frequency of negative effects was beyond that of random chance.
‘There’s been a sentiment in the community that because we don’t see obvious effects in some of these places, or that what we see tends to be small and localized, that maybe there aren’t any negative effects from low levels of radiation,’ said Mousseau. ‘But when you do the meta-analysis, you do see significant negative effects.’
‘It also provides evidence that there is no threshold below which there are no effects of radiation,’ he added. ‘A theory that has been batted around a lot over the last couple of decades is the idea that is there a threshold of exposure below which there are no negative consequences. These data provide fairly strong evidence that there is no threshold — radiation effects are measurable as far down as you can go, given the statistical power you have at hand.’”
“I cannot understate the importance of this: “Long-term exposure to radiation is not safe, even at so-called low levels,” Smith asserted. “”This simple fact needs to inform our quest for environmental safety and justice on many levels — whether the issue is as high-profile as the lingering aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan, or as down-to-earth as radioactive pipe from the oil patch that’s been used to build a school playground, as we discovered during that Chevron case.
“All citizens need to learn about the risks, the remedies, and the potential recourse,” Smith states……….http://www.examiner.com/article/louisiana-sinkhole-radiation-abuse-and-cover-up-continue
America’s nuclear reactors disintegrating – headed for crisis
Nuke power’s collapse gets ever more dangerous November 30, 2012, Harvey Wasserman
In the wake of this fall’s election, the disintegration of America’s decrepit atomic reactor fleet is fast approaching critical mass. Unless our No Nukes movement can get the worst of them shut soon, Barack Obama may be very lucky to get through his second term without a major reactor disaster.
All 104 licensed US reactors were designed before 1975—a third of a century ago. All but one went on line in the 1980s or earlier.
Plunging natural gas prices (due largely to ecologically disastrous fracking) are dumping even fully-amortized US reactors into deep red ink. Wisconsin’s Kewaunee will close next year because nobody wants to buy it. A reactor at Clinton, Illinois, may join it. Should gas prices stay low, the trickle of shut-downs will turn into a flood.
But more disturbing are the structural problems, made ever-more dangerous by slashed maintenance budgets.
- San Onofre Units One and Two, near major earthquake faults on the coast between Los Angeles and San Diego, have been shut for more than nine months by core breakdowns in their newly refurbished steam generators. A fix could exceed a half-billion dollars. A bitter public battle now rages over shutting them both.
- The containment dome at North Florida’s Crystal River was seriously damaged during “repair” efforts that could take $2 billion to correct. It will probably never reopen.
- NRC inspections of Nebraska’s Fort Calhoun, damaged during recent flooding, have unearthed a wide range of structural problems that could shut it forever, and that may have been illegally covered-up. According to William Boardman, NRC documents show nearly three dozen reactors to be at risk from dam breaks.
- Ohio’s Davis-Besse has structural containment cracks that should have forced it down years ago and others have been found at South Carolina’s V.C. Summer reactor pressure vessel.
- Intense public pressure at Vermont Yankee, at two reactors at New York’s Indian Point, and at New Jersey’s Oyster Creek (damaged in Hurricane Sandy) could bring them all down.
Projected completion of a second unit at Watts Bar, Tennessee, where construction began in the 1960s, has been pushed back to April, 2015. If finished at all, building this reactor may span a half-century.
Two new reactors under preliminary construction in South Carolina have been plagued by delays and cost overruns. Faulty components and concrete have marred two more under construction at Vogtle, Georgia, where builders may soon ask for a new delay on consideration of proposed federal loan guarantees.
This fall’s defeat of the very pro-nuclear Mitt Romney is an industry set-back. The return of Harry Reid (D-NV) as Senate Majority Leader means the failed Yucca Mountain waste dump will stay dead. A number of new Congressionals are notably pro-green, in line with Obama’s strong rhetorical support.
Socialism in Florida – taxpayers take finacial risks, nuclear company gets profits
Nuclear reactor tax puts unfair risk on customers By
Stephen Smith http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/opinion/fl-sscol-oped1130-20121130,0,5749854.story
11:26 a.m. EST, November 30, 2012
A misguided state law that allows big power companies to shift costs
and financial risk to customers for new nuclear power generation is
the last thing Florida’s families and businesses need as they dig out
of the worst recession in recent memory.
In 2006, the Florida legislature passed a bill to promote the
construction of new nuclear reactors, but it did this by shifting all
the costs and financial risk from utility company shareholders to its
customers. It allows companies, such as Florida Power & Light to bill
customers for specific costs before new reactors are built.
The law essentially imposes a “nuclear tax” by forcing customers to
pay preconstruction costs, including a hefty return to power company
shareholders, through their utility bills. Customers are charged
before the reactor has even produced electricity. In fact, the law
allows a big power company to recover all of its construction costs
for a reactor project even if it chooses to abandon it. This could
leave FPL customers on the hook for billions of dollars.
Last year, the Florida Public Service Commission approved $196 million
in costs that were passed on to FPL customers for nuclear-related
projects, including proposed new reactors at Turkey Point, 25 miles
south of Miami. This year, FPL sought and was recently granted another
$150 million. What’s particularly stunning about this is FPL continues
to request and be granted recovery of these costs by the PSC without
ever expressing a clear commitment to build the proposed new reactors.
This law, while saddling customers with significant costs and risk,
turns traditional utility regulation on its head. Power company
shareholders typically shoulder the risk for the construction of power
plants because prior to this new law, utilities could not charge
customers for new plants until they delivered power to customers. In
return, the state allows them to earn a rate of return on their
investment in the plant.
But this law now socializes costs and all the risk of reactor
construction by shifting it to customers. Meanwhile it privatizes all
the reward to big power company shareholders, such as FPL — even
though they shoulder no risk. FPL has recently requested an 11.25
percent return for its shareholders as part of a base rate increase.
The FPL project, if ever completed, is estimated to cost upwards of
$20 billion. Clearly an 11.25 percent return on $20 billion is a sweet
return for FPL shareholders for a risk-free investment.
New york to prepare for closure of Indian Point nuclear power plant
New York tells Con Ed to prepare in case Indian Point shuts By Scott DiSavino Nov 28, 2012 (Reuters) – New York energy regulators told power companies in New York City to develop plans to keep the lights on in the Big Apple in
case the giant Indian Point nuclear power plant, which supplies about
a quarter of the city’s electricity, is forced to shut down.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo wants the two reactors at Indian Point shut when their operating licenses expire in 2013 and 2015 in part because the nuclear plant is located in the New York metropolitan area, home to some 19 million people.
The governor has said even the most unlikely possibility of an accident is too much in the heavily populated area. U.S. power company
Entergy Corp, which owns Indian Point, says, however, the plant is safe, and the company is seeking to extend the reactors’ licenses for another 20 years.
The 2,063-megawatt (MW) Indian Point plant is about 40 miles north of
Manhattan along the Hudson River……
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/28/us-utilities-entergy-indianpoint-idUSBRE8AR18Z20121128
Uranium mining a threat to agriculture in Virginia
Farm lobby wants Virginia uranium ban to stay, PilotOnline.com By Steve Szkotak The Associated Press November 29, 2012 RICHMOND The Virginia Farm Bureau Federation is backing the continuation of the state’s 30-year ban on uranium mining, concluding that the mining and milling of the radioactive ore is a threat to Virginia’s multibillion dollar agricultural industry. Continue reading
Small Modular Nuclear Reactors (SMRs) fail on safety and economic grounds
More backup systems, he pointed out, would drive up the cost of small reactors, which already have a sizable economic disadvantage compared with large reactors. Because of economies of scale, the capital cost per kilowatt for a small reactor would be approximately 250 percent more than that for a large conventional reactor.
Lyman warned about allowing the industry to site small modular reactors in remote areas or developing countries that have no nuclear experience or emergency planning infrastructure. “UCS believes that [small modular reactors] are only suitable for deployment where there is an established infrastructure to cope with emergencies, and if sufficient numbers of trained operator and security staff can be provided
Nuclear Expert Dispels Myths about Small Modular Nuclear Reactors in Senate Testimony http://www.ucsusa.org/news/press_release/nuclear-expert-dispels-myths.html WASHINGTON (July 14, 2011) –– A physicist from the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) today testified before a Senate subcommittee that small modular nuclear reactors are not necessarily any safer or more secure than conventional size reactors and could be more dangerous. Companies vying to sell small reactors, he said, are overstating their benefits and downplaying their potential pitfalls. Continue reading
A slap on the wrist for Bechtel’s negligence about radiation safety at Hanford
there are mistakes, but not the type of mistakes that come with every project, but incompetent blunders. When workers are not trained and safety regulations are being violated when dealing with radioactive waste, is an inexcusable offence.
‘it is the governments fault for making everything harder for us to do anything because there are all these rules to follow so people don’t get hurt.’
The corporate executives live in another world that is secluded to ours, in which the rules don’t apply and that any regulations that protect people from something as serious as radioactive material, is government taking away freedom from them.
Corporate Radiation http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/11/26/1164819/-Corporate-Radiation, 26 Nov 12, Another story of corporate incompetence has surfaced. The Bechtel Corporation is in hot water due to failing safety guidelines, not training workers up to standard, and failing to follow procedures at the Hanford Nuclear plant outside of Richland, Washington. Continue reading
6 elderly anti nuclear women found guilty, in Massachusetts court case
6 Yankee protesters convicted of trespassing http://www.seattlepi.com/news/article/6-women-go-on-trial-for-nuclear-protest-4068991.php , November 27, 2012 BRATTLEBORO, Vt. (AP) — A jury has found six Massachusetts women guilty of trespassing at the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant last year to protest the continued operation of the reactor.
Police say the women, all members of the Shut It Down Affinity Group, traveled to the nuclear plant’s gate in Vernon on Aug. 30, 2011, used a chain and padlock to lock the entrance gate and chained themselves to the fence, while officials were busy with the aftermath of Tropical Storm Irene.
It’s one of about 22 protests the group has mounted against the reactor’s continued operation in recent years.
In court, the woman, who range in age from 69 to 93, represented themselves and raised concerns about the ecological and health effects of the facility.
USA extends corporate and military power with Trans Pacific Partnership
The U.S. has also pledged to put 2,500 marines in northern Australia, as well as regional missile-defense systems
Obama’s hawkish anti-Chinese rhetoric on the campaign trail coincided closely with U.S.complaints before the World Trade Organization over China’s allegedly illegal subsidization of its auto industry. And only a couple weeks ago, the U.S. International Trade Commission levied sizeable punitive tariffs against Chinese solar companies.
All of which will certainly cast a long shadow over Obama’s Pacific visit.
Asia pivot a go-go, Online opinion, By Marc-William Palen , 28 November 2012 Barack Obama’s speedy post election pivot to Asia has left the world in a tizzy. With the U.S. elections safely behind him, Obama promptly headed off to Asia in advance of this week’s East Asia Summit in Phnom Penh.
100 years ago, American businessmen and diplomats had obsessed over gaining access to the fabled China Market. With intense U.S. involvement in the trade-oriented Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), the once mythical Asia Market is fast becoming even more of a reality…. But, American interest in Asian markets brings with it sizeable Sino-American tensions, much as it did 100 years before.
Particularly, like the United States, China is also aggressively seeking to expand its economic influence in the region. For example, it is even now moving forward with its own trilateral trade agreement with South Korea and Japan.
Further American military expansion in the Asia-Pacific will only heighten these tensions, and U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta only just finished up a visit to Cambodia for the purpose of expanding U.S. military ties there. This move closely followed his announcement that the Pentagon will be enlarging the size of its military exercises in the region, ostensibly to put pressure on North Korea.
The U.S. has also pledged to put 2,500 marines in northern Australia, as well as regional missile-defense systems with the stated purpose of further deterring North Korea.
These alleged North Korean maneuvers nevertheless have “spooked” Australia, according to Peter Jennings, the head of the government-funded Australian Strategic Policy Institute. He views China to be at the heart of any U.S. military buildup in the region. Continue reading
An American Fukushima is possible – whistleblower
the NRC concealed the information from the public.
The mainstream media showed little or no interest in a story about yet another example of the NRC lying to the public about the safety of nuclear power plants.
Whistleblower: Nuclear Regulators Suppress Facts, Break Law , Nation of Change, William Boardman, 27 November 2012 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has known at least since 1996 that flooding danger from upstream dam failure was a more serious threat than the agency would publicly admit. The NRC failed from 1996 until 2011 to assess the threat even internally. In July 2011, the NRC staff completed a report finding “that external flooding due to upstream dam failure poses a larger than expected risk to plants and public safety” but the NRC did not make the 41-page report public. Continue reading
Nuclear lunacy: USA’s secret plan to nuclear bomb the moon
Confirmed: US planned to nuke the moon RT.com 26 November, 2012, In a secret project recently discovered, theUnited States planned to blow up the moon with a nuclear bomb in the 1950s as a display of the country’s strength during the Cold War space race.
The secret project, called “A Study of Lunar Research Flights”, as well as “Project A119” was never carried out but initially intended to intimidate the Soviet Union after their launch of the first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, which demonstrated their technological power, the Daily Mail reports.
The sight of a magnificent nuclear flash from Earth was meant to terrify the Soviet Union and boost US confidence, physicist Leonard Reiffel, 85, told the Associated Press. The nuclear device would have been launched from a missile from an unknown location. It would have
ignited upon impact with the moon, causing a massive explosion that was visible from Earth.
The detonation would have been the result of an atom bomb, since a hydrogen bomb was too heavy for a missile to carry the 238,000 miles to the moon…… In his interview with AP, which took place in the year 2000, Reiffel said the nuclear detonation could have occurred by
1959, which is when the US Air Force deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles. The project documents were kept secret for nearly 45 years and the US government has never formally confirmed its involvement in the study.
But in the end, the mission was abandoned due to safety concerns about the radioactive material that would contaminate space. The scientists were also worried about the bomb detonating prematurely, thereby endangering the people on Earth.
Rather than blow up the moon, the US continued the space race, sending its first satellite, Explorer 1, into orbit on Jan. 31, 1958. The project was officially canceled by the Air Force in Jan. 1959, and the US instead focused on sending a man to the moon.
1 This Month
23-25 October – on Zoom – World BEYOND War’s annual global conferenc
Shut down the radiation-damaged Heysham nuclear reactors now
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Say No to NASA’s Reckless Nuclear Reactor on the Moon
Say No to NASA’s Reckless Nuclear Reactor on the Moon
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