Page 55 - Elana Freeland - Under an Ionized Sky

RADIATION AND THE WIGNER EFFECT

The complexity of nuclear experimentation is beyond the pale of postmodern human
comprehension. It also reveals, although we would like to believe otherwise, our inability or
unwillingness to consider the unseen. Whether it is invisible because of ethereal origins or
because it is nano-sized poison does not matter; collectively we tend to obfuscate the unseen.
Nuclear experimentation also reveals our collective inability to conceptualize time, and to
understand just how long nuclear radiation lasts in our environment . . .

— Ethan Indigo Smith and Andy Whiteley, “Geoengineering and the Nuclear Connection”

Meanwhile, the weaponization of space continues to violate the 1967 UN Treaty on Principles
Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space. In 1965, SNAP-
10A was launched, the first space nuclear reactor with a controlled fission reaction inside and
enough uranium to produce 600 watts of power for a year. Forty-three days after launch, the
reactor miraculously shut down, but SNAP-10A is still orbiting as it falls apart, spreading
radioactivity with its debris. 134
After a twenty-eight-year hiatus, NASA has revived production of powder plutonium-238 in
tandem with the Kilopower Project’s uranium-fueled (U-235) Stirling engines for deep-space
missions. 135 The half-life of plutonium-238 is 88 years while the half-life of uranium-235 is 700
million years. “Radioisotope power systems” for “deep-space exploration,” 136 or for space wars?
Prowling nuclear submarines, aging silos, radioactive waste dump fires, 137 and Big Oil’s
reckless releases of radioactive radon via fracking (hydraulic fracture and shale gas extraction
processes) are what most people think of when the topic of radiation hazards rears its ugly head.
Ionized radiation technology is big business, protected by a sprawling international industry in
turn protected by agencies like the U.S. Department of Energy and Nuclear Regulatory
Commission (the Atomic Energy Commission until 1974). For more than 70 years, nuclear
energy has marched on, despite public opinion that it spells death for the planet and all living
beings.
On any day in America, radioactive I-131 particles with a half-life of eight days are settling
into thyroid glands as strontium-90, cesium-137, zirconium and other radioactive isotopes nestle
into other tissues. Cows eat fallout grass, Americans drink fallout milk and eat fallout cheese and
meat as the Sun’s cosmic rays penetrate the atmosphere and intensify the ionized radiation. This
witches’ brew is then absorbed by soil, rock, water—and this is before considering the new
synergies since chemtrail fallout.
Because galactic and solar radiation filter through our magnetosphere shield, commercial
aircrews are classified as radiation workers, though the levels of radiation to which they are
subjected are mysteriously undocumented. The National Council on Radiation Protection and
Measurements reported in 2009 that aircrews have the highest annual dose of radiation of all
radiation-exposed workers in the U.S. 138 While it is well known that a solar storm or frequent
high-latitude flight increases radiation exposure, the extent of what it means for human health
remains unquantified, despite the spontaneous abortions, tissue damage, breaks in DNA strands,
chemically active radicals altering cell function, etc. Nowcast of Atmospheric Ionizing Radiation
for Aviation Safety (NAIRAS) and Automated Radiation Measurements for Aviation Safety
(ARMAS) claim they will rectify this oversight.

Quantifying the levels of atmospheric ionizing radiation is of particular interest to the aviation industry since it is the