I recently posted on Karl Grossman's fear mongering concerning the NASA Curiosity rover and its Pu-238 power.
Here's more on the subject.
One of Curiosity's goals is to measure the radiation environment on Mars for future human habitation as well as general science knowledge.
Galactic cosmic rays are particularly deleterious to humans. And shielding isn't very effective. This recent video discusses the issues. After the first few minutes it gets pretty deep into molecular radiation biology. So watch as much as you can handle...it could induce a state of sleep:
Karl Grossman is not fear mongering concerning NASA's plutonium gamble. He is concerned that we are not being fearful enough. Grossman is well informed, and convinced that if an early phase of the MSL mission turns into a repeat of the 1964 SNAP 9A satellite reentry, then we'd have about 5 times more fatal lung cancers than the first Pu-burnup. How many cancers? Even Grossman is humbly being cautious about that. Radiobiologists like the late John Gofman thought the SNAP 9A cancer burden result was a number greater than zero. That is too much risk when NASA could - yes, they really could (despite the 'dust' problem) - use solar technology.
ReplyDeleteThe overall cancer risk is 0.2 latent cancer fatalities, with a 1 in 220 chance of occurring.
ReplyDeleteThe main issue isn't dust, it's the lack of sunlight in winter.
Propaganda is an ugly habit.
It's quite amazing that now we 21st centurians have a 1 in 2 chance of contracting cancer yet you health physicists - who NASA misguidingly believes - assure us that environmental artifical radiation has nothing to do with it - because your formulas tell you so. Clinging to a fictitious field of science and its erroneous formulas to inform people about their health risks is worse than an ugly habit - it is a crime.
ReplyDeleteNot a single reputable health physicist says that environmental articifial radiation has NOTHING to do with humans getting cancer.
ReplyDeleteOf course it does.
Just much less than other carcinogens.
Nothing fictious about it, no matter how often you delude yourself it is.