Suffolk Closeup: Nuclear reactors on the moon?

Atomic energy has been an unexpectedly extensive part of my journalistic journey. 

Because of having been deeply involved in reporting about LILCO’s plan to construct seven to 11 nuclear power plants in Suffolk County, I became knowledgeable about the subject. I wrote a book titled “Power Crazy” about this scheme to turn this area into what nuclear promoters termed then a “nuclear park.” I wrote many columns and did television reporting on it.

So, back in 1985, with that experience, I was struck by a piece in the U.S. Department of Energy’s publication, “Energy Insider,” saying that DOE and NASA were partners in the sending up in 1986 two space shuttles — one being the Challenger — with space probes onboard fueled by plutonium, considered the most toxic of all radioactive substances. 

Once the shuttles achieved orbit, the probes would be released, the one Challenger carried to survey Jupiter. The plutonium would be in radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs), not for propulsion but to provide electric power for instruments. 

In “Energy Insider” there was a notice that the government had looked into various sorts of accidents that might happen on the missions. So, I sent Freedom of Information Act requests to DOE, NASA, and the DOE national laboratories involved in these studies asking to learn what was determined. 

As the months passed, I began to realize I had hit upon a hot potato. I was denied the information on the grounds it was “technical,” which is not a legitimate FOIA exemption. I appealed and won. Finally, to my post office in Sag Harbor came a box of documents, including a government projection that the likelihood of a “catastrophic” shuttle accident was 1-in-100,00. Those were very long odds, so I didn’t do anything.

That was until Jan. 28, 1986 when on my way to teach my Investigative Reporting class at SUNY Old Westbury, I heard on the car radio that the Challenger had exploded on launch.

I stopped at a P.C. Richard store and saw that terrible image on TV and telephoned The Nation magazine to tell them that the next mission of the Challenger, in May, was to involve a nuclear system, and if the accident occurred then and plutonium released as dust, the disaster could have been a massive catastrophe. 

The Nation asked me to write a piece, which I did. Other media picked up on it and I was pretty widely interviewed. A publisher called resulting in a book I wrote that he titled “The Wrong Stuff.” Meanwhile, NASA and DOE changed the odds of a catastrophic shuttle accident from 1-in-100,000 to 1-in 76.

And I began to “follow the money” as Bob Woodward’s source “Deep Throat” instructed in the film about the Watergate investigation.

I did and found the then “Star Wars” program of President Reagan was predicated on orbiting battle platforms with hypervelocity guns, particle beams and laser weapons onboard and, also onboard, nuclear reactors and “super plutonium” systems providing the high energy they needed. The latter would be built by General Electric, manufacturer of the RTGs on the space probe Challenger was to loft. 

NASA’s use of nuclear power in space was being done in parallel with the plan for nuclear-powered weaponry in space.

This resulted in another book I authored, “Weapons in Space,” its foreword by Dr. Michio Kaku, and an hour-long TV documentary I wrote and presented, “Nukes in Space: The Nucleariztion and Weaponization of the Heavens.” And there have been many articles on this and more TV programs during the ensuing four decades including “Star Wars Returns” (viewable at envirovideo.com).  

I gave two presentations on this before members of the British Parliament in London, presentations at the United Nations in New York and Geneva, and elsewhere around the U.S. and world.

My most recent article on it, last month, involved the announcement by the Air Force secretary acknowledging the U.S. has deployed weapons in space.

Last week the lead front page story in The New York Times was headlined: “Superpowers Racing to Put Nuclear Reactors on Moon.” The nations involved: the U.S., China and Russia. And there was a subhead: “Experts Warn of Radioactive Risks From a Rocket Mishap or Lunar Melt-down.”

The reporter, Selam Gebrekidan, wrote: “Failures could cause a chain reaction with dire consequences. Falling reactor debris could scatter radioactive material … An explosion or a melt-down on the moon’s surface could risk turning entire regions into no-go zones.”

The extensive story quoted Edward Lyman, director of nuclear power safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists, saying: “There will always be a space race going on, and if you enter nuclear power into that mix, then it could take a potentially more dangerous turn.”

My journalism on nuclear and weapons in space has been repeatedly listed by Project Censored, a program at Sonoma State University in California, as among the “most under-reported” stories.

In 1992, the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space was formed and is active worldwide. As Bruce Gagnon, coordinator of the Maine-based organization, said about what the Times reported: “This will move the Earth-bound global war system into the heavens. When they add nuclear power into the equation these people are asking for trouble.”