As Columbia's toxic debris lays spread over hundreds of miles of the southern U.S., the fallibility of space exploration has sadly hit home once again. Despite the dangers, and the safety lapses (see "NASA 'Ignored' Shuttle Safety Alert" Times of London), NASA has been moving to vastly expand its use of nuclear power in space. A $1 billion Nuclear Systems Initiative that began last year would include the development of nuclear-propelled rockets and the increased use of nuclear-powered space probes. It is called Project Prometheus.

In ancient Greek mythology, Prometheus ascends Mount Olympus, fools the gods, steals fire and then returns to earth to give it to his fellow mortals. This did not please the Gods. Fire gave humans too much power. So Zeus chains Prometheus to a rock, to be tortured for eternity.

As Columbia's toxic debris lays spread over hundreds of miles of the southern U.S., the fallibility of space exploration has sadly hit home once again. Despite the dangers, and the safety lapses (see "NASA 'Ignored' Shuttle Safety Alert" Times of London), NASA has been moving to vastly expand its use of nuclear power in space. A $1 billion Nuclear Systems Initiative that began last year would include the development of nuclear-propelled rockets and the increased use of nuclear-powered space probes. It is called Project Prometheus.

Karl Grossman, author of "The Wrong Stuff: The Space Program's Nuclear Threat To Our Planet" and a professor of journalism at the State University of New York, Old Westbury, has been one of the most outspoken critics of America’s use of nuclear power in space. On the heels of the Columbia tragedy, Grossman talked with GNN about the folly of launching radioactive materials into the great beyond:

GNN: Tell me about how you got involved in this issue.

Grossman: It all started in 1985. I was sitting here reading a Dept. of Energy newsletter saying that the Dept. of Energy with NASA, and several national laboratories, Oak Ridge, Los Alamos and so forth, were readying two shuttle shots involving plutonium-fueled space probes. I said, "Wow, what would happen if there was an accident?" I knew something about nuclear energy, so I figured I’d file a Freedom of Information Act and get an Environmental Impact Report or something. But weeks went by, then months, and nothing came. I started to push it. Finally later in '85, I got some information about these two shots. It was amazing, what these documents they gave me said:

If one of the SRBs (solid rocket boosters), for instance, doesn’t ignite on the launch pad, the whole thing keels over and explodes. I wonder if they told Christie McAuliffe that information. They also said there was a one in 100,000 possibility of a shuttle accident. Not long after, it was Jan. 28, [1986] I was driving to my investigative journalism class I taught at SUNY Old Westbury and the Challenger blew up.

I jumped into a PC Richards and was watching it all happen on these TV sets, and I was thinking about what would have happened if this was the mission with that 25 lbs. of plutonium spread all over southern Florida. I called The Nation from the store and said, “Do you know that the next mission of the Challenger was supposed to have plutonium on it?