Speakers at a hearing Tuesday night on the Air Force proposal to test nuclear rocket technology were passionate, but they weren't very informative about possible environmental impacts.
A contingent of Idaho residents from the vicinity of the federal government's Idaho National Engineering Laboratory showed up to support the concept. Most Utahns who spoke were adamantly against the rocket.For an hour before the hearing began at the Clarion Hotel, 999 S. Main, Air Force officers ran through the findings of a draft environmental impact statement on the project. The statement concluded that no serious impacts could be predicted from developing the particle-bed reactor, which would be tested inside a bunker at either the Engineering Lab near Idaho Falls or the Nevada Test Site.
The rocket, intended for use outside the atmosphere, could develop between two and five times the thrust of missiles using conventional chemical fuel. Presumably, it could deliver a bigger probe to another planet, and do it much faster.
The officers concluded that radiological danger would be practically nil from the development, although they focused strictly on the development program, refusing to speculate about what might happen if a rocket were launched.
But if two reactors exploded under the worst possible weather conditions, an inversion with wind blowing toward the nearest community, that would shower only 20 to 30 millirems of radiation on nearby residents, they said. Background radiation doses folks with about 430 millirem or more every year.
Only about 45 people were in the audience for the hearing, the third of four scheduled in Utah, Nevada and Idaho.
Diana Lee Hirschi asked the officers to look at each other and soak in what they saw. She kept insisting they had to look, and one officer raised his arms in an embarrassed gesture that seemed to mean they had looked, and so what? Then Hirschi said that what she saw was white men in uniform making decisions that affect everybody else's life.
Paul Mulder of the office of Rep. Wayne Owens, D-Utah, read a statement by the congressman in which he said that experts have told him the testing, if carried out as "described in your EIS could be relatively safe."
But the draft document contains "no justification for this program," he said. Owens' statement added that the Air Force has ignored a congressional directive to justify its interest in the rocket.
Cherry Wong, a board member of Utahns United Against the Nuclear Arms Race, said she objects to "any facility that continues the development of nuclear thermal technology."
Grace Guemple, chief executive officer of the Eastern Idaho Technical College, Idaho Falls, said she hopes the Air Force would pick the INEL for the project instead of the test site. "I pledge the college's willingness to work with the INEL" to help develop the project, she said.
The "fantastic lifestyle" of her region is largely provided through employment and research connected with the INEL, she said. "I view the space nuclear program as a prime example" of economic development and diversity, she said.
The project could employ 100 during construction, with a permanent staff of 40 during testing, which would last five to 10 years.
Brian Meacham of Utah Peace Test said that with the national debt presently at $4.3 trillion, the rocket would be a waste of money. "We have no doubt it would eventually be used to deploy weapons orbiting around Earth," he said.