Nuclear Propulsion Neg

Solvency – Plutonium

Unfortunately, the plutonium 238 power sources that are used to power these missions are not only expensive, they are dirty and dangerous to produce and to launch. The first launch accident (pdf) involving an RTG occurred as early as 1964 and distributed 17,000 curies of plutonium-238 around the globe, a 4% increase in the total environmental burden (measured in curies) from all plutonium isotopes (mostly fallout from atmospheric nuclear weapons testing). A plutonium fueled RTG that was deployed in 1965 by the CIA not in space but on a mountaintop in the Himalayas (to help monitor Chinese nuclear tests) continues to generate anxiety, not electricity, more than four decades after it was lost in place. See, most recently, “River Deep Mountain High” by Vinod K. Jose, The Caravan magazine, December 1, 2010.

However, Pu 238 spits out radiation at least 250 times faster than bomb-grade plutonium. As the atom falls apart, it emits alpha particles--small clumps of nuclear particles--with enormous energy. That energy provides heat and electricity for the instruments on Cassini, as well as the Mars Pathfinder, the Apollo moon flights and other NASA missions. Cassini carries more plutonium than NASA has ever lofted into space. But although Pu 238 is the "workhorse of the space program," as its discoverer, Glenn Seaborg, calls it, the alpha particles it emits are extremely dangerous to living tissue and DNA. Lodged in the lungs or bone, Pu 238 continues to emit alpha particles for decades, wrecking havoc with the delicate machinery within cells. Earth's atmosphere already holds as much as five tons of plutonium, a legacy of the nuclear bomb testing of the 1950s. "I don't think there's any obvious signs of damage," said physicist Philip Morrison of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dozens of atomic bomb workers ingested plutonium during World War II, said the 85-year-old Seaborg, including himself. And many are still walking around to tell the tale, he said. However, pediatrician Helen Caldicott, who founded Physicians for Social Responsibility, points out that most cancers don't appear for many decades after exposure to a carcinogen, and the delayed effects are only now beginning to surface among the general population exposed to the nuclear fallout from tests. "We are seeing increased cancer, particularly testicular cancer in men," she said. The medical profession, she said, should take the link between nuclear fallout and increased cancer more seriously. "[They aren't] putting one and one together," she said. Meanwhile, she said, the plutonium from the 1950s' tests continues to circulate in the atmosphere. "Do we want to add more to it?" she asked.