4 ms·

what would’ve happened if challenger was carrying nuclear material? (i’m actually asking)

• coryrc 9y ago
  The Earth would be immeasurably more radioactive than today.
  • vanjoe 9y ago
    Usually immeasurably means infinite, I'm guessing that's not what you meant?
    • ac29 9y ago
      Immeasurably means "incapable of being measured", which could refer to too small to measure or too large to measure, because English is fun like that. It does generally refer to the latter, though.
  • robotresearcher 9y ago
    The Earth would in fact be the same radioactive as today, assuming we had used stockpiled Pu. It's the distribution that matters. A little bit of ocean floor over Florida would be much more radioactive than today if it was scattered with Pu-238.
• maxerickson 9y ago
  It would depend a great deal on what it was and how it was packaged. This seems to have some good discussion: https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/16608/how-does-the-launch-risk-for-a-plutonium-rtg-and-a-uranium-fission-reactor-compa https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/16608/how-does-the...