PROJECT GALILEO SHUTTLE TO CARRY LETHAL PLUTONIUM Despite scientific warnings of a possibl

 PROJECT GALILEO SHUTTLE TO CARRY LETHAL PLUTONIUM

          Despite scientific warnings of a possible disaster, NASA is
     pursuing plans to launch the Project Galileo shuttle space probe which
     will carry enough plutonium to kill every person on earth.
          Theoretically, one pound of polutonium, uniformly distributed,
     has the potential to give everyone on the planet a fatal case of lung
     cancer.  Galileo will have 49.25 pounds of plutonium on board, most of
     it plutonium 238, a radioisotope 300 times more radioactive than the
     one used as fuel for atomic bombs.
          Critics of the plan, such as Dr. John Gofman, professor of
     medical physics at the University of California, Berkeley, and Michio
     Kaku, professor of nuclear physics at the City University of New York
     claim that putting Galileo's plutonium payload into space is both
     risky and unnecessary.
          The plutonium will be used to fuel "radioisotope thermoelectric
     generators" which keep instrumentation warm.  Although NASA and the
     DOE say there are no alternatives, professor Kaku asserts that the
     latest advances in solar cells make it possible to generate solar
     electricity even as far away as Jupiter, Galileo's destination.
          NASA downplays the possibility of the release of plutonim in an
     accident, stressing that the substance will be encapsulated in "clads"
     made from iridium alloy in a graphite shell.  The DOE contends that
     clads can withstand explosive pressures up to 2,200 pounds per square
     inch.  However, a DOE safety analysis report on the Galileo mission
     obtained under FOIA states that from the viewpoint of potential
     nuclear fuel release, the most critical accidents would occur on the
     launch pad.  Launch pad accident scenarios, such as "tipovers" and
     "pushovers" are estimated to generate explosive pressures as high as
     19,600 psi.
          Once in space, Galileo is still potentially danglerous.  Since
     the solid-fuel rocket substituted for the highly volatile liquid-fuel
     Centaur rocket used in the Challenger does not have the power of the
     Centaur, NASA devised a plan to use the earth's gravitational pull to
     increase the rocket's momentum sufficiently to reach Jupiter.  During
     the "flyby" orbits around the earth, Galileo would at times be only
     277 miles overhead.  A 1987 NASA report estimates the chance of
     Galileo inadvertently reentering the earth's atmosphere to be less
     than one in a million, and, as such, an accident scenario is deemed
     not credible.
          NASA set the probability figures for the chance of a shuttle
     accident at one in 100,000 for thhe Challenger. Investigation
     following the crash put the figure at closer to one in 25.
          While "The Lethal Shuttle: Plutonium Payload Scheduled" was one
     of the top 10 overlooked stories cited by Project Censored in 1986,
     the continued failure of the media to draw attention to the potential
     risk of Project Galileo fully warrants its renomination for 1987.

          SOURCES: THE NATION, 1/23/88, "The Space Probe's Lethal Cargo,"
     by Karl Grossman;, pp 1, 78; L.A. TIMES, 2/6/86.