
DATE: Wednesday, October 8, 1997            TAG: 9710080424

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A4   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Focus 

SOURCE: K.C. COLE

        LOS ANGELES TIMES

                                            LENGTH:   54 lines

FOCUS: NUKES IN SPACE NASA'S CASSINI MISSION TO SATURN, SCHEDULED FOR LAUNCH MONDAY, WILL CARRY 72 POUNDS OF PLUTONIUM - THE LARGEST AMOUNT OF THE DEADLY ELEMENT EVER LOFTEDINTO SPACE. NASA INSISTS THE RISKS ARE MINIMAL, BUT CRITICS AREN'T CONVINCED.<

MEMO: [Complete text of this story can be found on the microfilm for

this date.] ILLUSTRATION: ASSOCIATED PRESS

Two girls take part in a protest Saturday of the Cassini launch at

Florida's Cape Canaeral Air Force Station.

THE MISSION

Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel, KRT, VP

SOURCES: Jet Propulsion Laboratories; NASA; Atlas of the Solar

System.

GRAPHIC

[For a copy of the graphic, see microfilm for this date.]

NUCLEAR ACCIDENTS IN SPACE

Three of America's 26 nuclear-powered space missions have failed

since the first such craft was launched in 1961. A brief look at

each U.S. accident and two of Russia's biggest fiascoes:

1964: U.S. military navigation satellite carrying 2 pounds of

plutonium plunges to Earth. The radioisotope thermoelectric

generator, or RTG, burns up in the atmosphere as designed, releasing

radioactive material. Accident prompts RTG redesign.

1968: U.S. weather satellite carrying 6 pounds of plutonium

crashes into the Pacific Ocean off California coast shortly after

liftoff. Both RTGs remain intact and are retrieved, reinforced and

reflown.

1970: Apollo 13 lunar lander carrying 8 pounds of plutonium is

discarded prior to crew's return from aborted moon mission, and the

RTG sinks in the South Pacific near Fiji. Still there and believed

to be intact.

1978: Soviet spy satellite launched four months earlier with

nuclear reactor containing 100 pounds of uranium plunges through

atmosphere over Canada's Northwest Territories. Most burns up in

atmosphere, but some survives. Radioactive debris found on ground as

small as grain of salt. Cleanup lasts weeks.

1996: Russian Mars probe plunges through atmosphere soon after

launch, and its half-pound of plutonium supposedly lands in Pacific

Ocean, Chile or Bolivia. Plutonium unit not yet found.

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