X-Message-Number: 20680
Date: Sat, 21 Dec 2002 22:59:32 -0500
From: Thomas Donaldson <>
Subject: promised reference

Hi everyone!

A few days ago I put up a message about terrorists versus nuclear 
reactors in which I basically said that this problem had been 
studied and looked like one which would be far less serious than
much popular thinking seems to suggest. I said also that I would
give a reference to the article which influenced me to this
conclusion. So here is the reference:

	SCIENCE 297(2002)(1997-1999)

Its title is "Nuclear power plants and their fuel as terrorist
targets" and it is by 15 people, most of whom were not working 
with a nuclear company (but many had retired). Among the things
they cite is a study of the question of what would happen if
a large commercial airplane were to run into the outside of a 
nuclear reactor. This involved not only explicit tests with
(unmanned!) airplanes against walls with the same parameters
as those around nuclear reactors, but computer calculatons
too. It seems that a plane at 480 mph going into a wall 3.6
meters thick would penetrate the wall by about 5 centimeters.
The article in SCIENCE discussed other issues too, of course.

               Best wishes and long long life,

                    Thomas Donaldson

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