LOSES" PLUTONIUM IN ATMOSPHERE
No accidents, endangering the rest of humanity, can happen so long as control of nuclear devicés remains in the "safe" hands of Washington and Moscow?
The. How York ‘Times revealed May 25 thatthe ‘Atoms Energy _ Commission pounds of deadly plutonium "somewhere in space near Africa,"
‘Washington officials at first sought to conceal the accident, which occurred about April 21, The Atomic Forum, a newsletter of the Atomic Industrial Forum, began inquiries, however, and eventually compelled acknowledgment by the Pentagon,
The loss of the $1,000,000 package was due to ta human error," said the Defense Department in finally admitting the acci-~ dent. “Because of the failure of a technician in the control center to throw a switch, ,bhe guidance system did not have a chance to function properly."
Thus rocket failure occurred and the satellite did not go into orbit, The "payload," including the atomic battery which was powered by plutonium 238, came down into the atmosphere off the east coast of Africa,
Washington officials hope that the satellite burned up on re-entering the atmosphere and that this dispersed the highly poisonous radioactive material in "minute particles" at an altitude of around 120,000 feet where it would float for some months before gradually descending to the surface of the earth as radioactive fall-out.
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They aren!t sure, however,. It may have come down in a more concentrated bundle, drenching a. relatively small area with: the * . lethal material. : a, , tate
- The New York- Times ‘said that the State Department - had: “rents: tered-its reservations" ‘about launching satellites containing radio-~ active substances because of possible "international protest" in. case of: an accident, The concern of.-the State Department is sufficient... evidence of how dangerous the project ‘appeared | to: be even in: top: Washington circles, reel
In June 1961, however, President Kennedy himself gave the = - OK, That, of course, made everything quite safe, since it is well | known that the late President's first concern was always the welfare of humanity, Three other atomic-powered transit satellites were sent into orbit before the one that failed due to "a human error,"
; "On the Methodology of tSeotarianism!" by PL.
-Carp.-— a Marxist analysis of the pote ‘taken by.) i
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