Applause for Perseverance Ignores Plutonium Bullet We Dodged

25 February 2021 — FAIR

By Karl Grossman
ABC: NASA releases stunning new video of Perseverance rover landing on Mars

ABC (2/22/21) had one of many reports that celebrated the Mars landing without noting that the rover was powered by plutonium—or the risks NASA had taken in launching that payload into space.

With all the media hoopla last week about the Perseverance rover, frequently unreported was that its energy source is plutonium—considered the most lethal of all radioactive substances—and nowhere in media was the NASA projection that there were 1-in-960 odds of an accidental release of the plutonium on the mission.

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