I found that accidents involving the use of nuclear power in space is not a sky-is-falling threat. In the then 26 U.S. space nuclear shots, there had been three accident, the worst in 1954 involving a satellite powered by a SNAP 9-A radioisotope thermoelectric generator fueled with plutonium.
The satellite failed to achieve orbit, broke up in the atmosphere as it came crashing back down to Earth, its plutonium dispersing as dust extensively on Earth. Dr. John Gofman, an M.D. and Ph.D., professor of medical physics at the University of California at Berkeley, formerly associate director of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, author of Poisoned Power and involved in early studies of plutonium, long pointed to the SNAP 9-A accident as causing an increase in lung cancer on Earth.
Today the use of nuclear in space is being pushed harder than ever.
"US Eyes Building Nuclear Power Plants for Moon and Mars," declared the headline this July of an Associated Press dispatch. "US Eyes Building Nuclear Power Plants for Moon and Mars"
As Linda Pentz Gunter, editor at Beyond Nuclear International, recently wrote on CountPunch: "Yet undeterred by immorality and expense, and apparently without the slightest concern for the radioactive dirt pile these reactors will produce, NASA and the Department of Energy are eagerly soliciting proposals."
ondnuclearinternational.org/2020/10/18/goodbye-moon/
In July, too, the White House National Space Council issued a strategy for space exploration that includes "nuclear propulsion methods." "US Ramps Up Planning for Space Nuclear Technology"
General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems has come out with a design for a nuclear propulsion reactor for trips to Mars.
Nuclear propulsion, its promoters are saying, would get astronauts to Mars quicker.
Shouted the headline in Popular Mechanics last month: "The Thermal Nuclear Engine That Could Get Us to Mars in Just 3 Months."
And Elon Musk, founder and CEO of SpaceX, has been touting the detonation of nuclear bombs on Mars to, he says, "transform it into an Earth-like planet."
As Business Insider explains, Musk "has championed the idea of launching nuclear weapons just over Mars' poles since 2015. He believes it will help warm the planet and make it more hospitable for human life."
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