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Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla
The CNN.com article contains a couple of eyebrow-raising questionable statements. One is probably a typo: it'd be plutonium-239, not -238. 238 is regular uranium, ....
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For someone who claims in previous posts to be so intelligent, well then, UG intentionally posted lies. He posted lies because he is so intelligent as to know he was wrong. CNN was accurate. As usual, Urbane Guerilla uses partisan politics reasoning to criticize others.
Plutonium exists in many isotopes. 239 is weapons grade Plutonium. If Pu-239 was used as a battery for a New Horizon's satellite (as Urbane Guerilla so confidently proclaims), then Pu-239 would quickly degrade inside a warhead. Obviously, Pu-239 cannot be used as a spacecraft battery AND also be used in a nuclear weapon (such as Fat Boy). Urbane Guerilla - one with so much intelligence - would have obviously known that fact.
Pu-238 has long and often been used for batteries; being less stable and therefore producing energy in radiothermal generators. IOW CNN was correct. Therefore an 'always more intelligent' Urbane Guerilla lied. Something like 17 different known types of Plutonium exists including a most stable Pu-244.
Yes, there is Uranium 238 and there is Plutonium 238. A man intelligent enough to be officer material would have known that basic fact. Meanwhile UG would have you believe that all Plutonium was only 239.
Furthermore, an informed UG would have known that US Navy submarines use uranium for both propulsion and for nuclear missiles. Plutonium 239 was used for some Soviet missiles. But plutonium 239 is more difficult to isolate which is but one reason why uranium - not plutonium - is a preferred weapon grade material. UG claims that the Thresher (that had no weapons) and the Scorpion were sources of Plutonium contamination. Obviously a ship (Thresher) undergoing acceptance testing has no nuclear weapons on board. An intelligent UG - who claims decades of Naval service - knew this. Therefore, he intentionally lied. IOW either UG accuses without first thinking (due to a shortage of intelligence), or he knew he was lying to The Cellar. But then both are characteristics of people who blindly follow the political party line.
A plutonium 238 danger is the same reason why a dirty bomb is so feared. New Horizon launch has an estimated one in 350 chance of failure. This plutonium danger is why something like 18 special teams are at the Cape only for this launch. A risk undertaken because other New Horizon energy sources are just as dangerous or moreso.
But Urbane Guerilla proclaims CNN as wrong while never once proclaiming such errors from Fox News. Typical of a partisan brain that waits for instruction from a political party to know what to think.
And so we have a basic question. Is UG that dumb as to promote the party line? Or is he so corrupt as to intentionally lie to The Cellar? Maybe a partisan UG forgot how to think. He proclaimed something without instruction from his political party handlers.