Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, August 25, 1994 TAG: 9408250120
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
And in 1960, military planes were sent through radioactive rocket exhaust, and radiation doses to flight crews were measured, they showed.
The findings, discovered in archival documents from the U.S. Energy Department, are part of a continuing probe of the government's secretive human radiation experiments during the Cold War.
``Elements of the nuclear-powered rocket program should qualify as human experiments,'' Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., who released the documents, wrote to Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary.
Also, any future testing of a nuclear-powered rocket, in which both the Air Force and NASA have expressed interest, should proceed only after a public discussion of radiation protection measures and anticipated doses to workers and the public, Markey wrote.
On Jan. 12, 1965, in Jackass Flats, Nev., part of a rocket's nuclear core was vaporized so scientists could study the behavior and environmental effects of the radiation, the documents showed.
``The U.S. Public Health Service monitored the neighborhood and collected milk samples in southern Nevada and California to beyond 200 miles downwind,'' stated an abstract from the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory in New Mexico, which collected environmental data from the test.
Although estimated radiation doses to human beings beyond the test site were well below current limits set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, considerably more people were exposed than in other experiments because the cloud traveled so far, Markey said.
The cloud was tracked by aircraft, and increased radioactivity in routine air samples was observed in Barstow, San Bernadino, Los Angeles and San Diego a few days after the explosion, the documents said.
No radioactive materials were found in the milk samples, they said.
Another Los Alamos report detailed how, in 1960, B-57 crews swallowed gamma film capsules and wore special lithium-shielded gamma film badges before flying through rocket exhaust to measure its radioactivity.
The report omits actual doses, on classified grounds, but noted that it had been common practice, since 1950, to send aircraft to measure radioactive materials from nuclear tests.
The atomic agency is the forerunner of the Energy Department and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and O'Leary has made many documents available in an effort to open up the government's history of human radiation experimentation.
Markey, a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, released a congressional report in 1986 describing 31 human experiments funded by federal agencies.
by CNB