OR You Need Source With That
Ah me, the dangers of blithely accepting what other people pass on as being gospel! This is how myths and legends accrete over time, and what we're going to look at today is a little-known incident that got magnified over time, with additional hyperbole added-in by drunken reptiles journalists, all seasoned with a smidgeon of lying-by-omission.
But first, a contemporary example of same. Art!
For those of you unfamiliar with aircraft, that's F-16s being flown by the good guys to port, and an Su-24 being flown by the orcs to starboard. There was chatter on Ruffian Telegram channels that an F-16 had shot down an Su-24, 50 kilometres inside Ruffian territory. This chatter got picked up on and passed on over other social media, WITHOUT CONFIRMATION. It is now being repeatedly posted on Twitter with NO PROOF THAT IT HAPPENED.
Conrad, cynical old hack that he is, openly stated that the Ukrainians have not confirmed what happened, which in fact they may never do - gotta keep the orcs a-guessing. F-16? Roving Patriot battery? Ruffian air defence? Nobody knows yet.
Now for the historical aspect of today's Intro. Art!
This is the Chalk River Nuclear Power Plant in Canuckistan, an important research and experimental plant using an NRU reactor.
It may surprise you to know that the first serious nuclear accident award goes to Canuckistan, an event that took place at Chalk River in 1952. It was a rather ominous foreshadowing of Chernobyl; equipment shortcomings compounded by human error during a potentially risky experiment.
End result; a partial meltdown in the reactor core due to a power surge, and 4.5 million litres of radioactively-contaminated water flooding the basements, thanks to the cooling water system being catastrophically breached. Art!
How Jimmy Carter Saved a Canadian Nuclear Reactor After a Meltdown
"Carter and his 22 other team members were separated into teams of three and lowered into the reactor for 90-second intervals to clean the site."
Yes, that Jimmy Carter. This was when he was a fresh-faced 28-year old officer in the South Canadian Navy, specialising in nuclear reactor technology.
"They built an exact replica of the reactor, true to the last detail (except the actual nuclear material) on a nearby tennis court to practice and track their progress."
This is how legends and myths accrete. Art!
This is a schematic of the Chalk River reactor. There is no way anyone could be 'lowered' into it, and even if that were possible said person would be dead thirty minutes later. As for 'they' building a replica reactor nearby for analysis and progress-monitoring - Art!
Reactor with puny humans for scale
Bit of a monster, isn't it? One has to ask the logical question of why you'd need to construct a full-scale replica if all you were doing was being lowered into the interior?
The truth is rather more prosaic, yet all the more interesting for being true. I've gone over multiple different accounts of the accident and aftermath and, not surprisingly, there are no photographs in the public domain of what happened during or after the accident.
Firstly, the lying by omission. From that headline you might think it was solely Lieutenant Carter and his twenty-two gallant matelot comrades who saved the world/Canada/Ottowa/ the day <delete where applicable>. Art!
James looking and being serious*
The clean-up, which took 14 months, involved 850 Chalk River plant staff and another 350 outside personnel, so 1.200 in total, thus meaning Jim & Co. made up about 2% of the total.
This is not to denigrate the man and his men. They were limited to 90 seconds work in the vicinity of the reactor even whilst wearing protective gear, as the environment was so 'hot'. Carter stated that his urine was radioactive for weeks after his part. He - and presumably all the other 1,299 other staff - were warned that he might never have children, and he came from a family with a history of cancer. The absorbed dose in 1952, thought to be bearable, is about one thousand times in excess of what we deem safe today, this being the infancy of radiological medicine. Art!
Well, he went on to have four children and celebrated his 100th birthday the other week, so yah boo sucks to radiation**!
Far from being 'lowered' into the reactor, Carter and others had to sprint into the building, where he had merely sufficient time to turn a bolt before having to sprint out again, which process is why it took months to complete the clean-up. NOT 14 months - legends again - as this time-frame is how long it took to install and fire up an new reactor core.
There is a degree of vagueness about how the contaminated water was dealt with; the only account I found said that it was filtered, presumably to remove the radioactive contaminants? The core itself was 'buried' - somewhere. Don't go digging in the sands along the Chalk River, Canuckistanians! Art!
The Chalk River Nuclear Accident - 5 on a scale of 7
(7 = Chernobyl)
More Starship!
Conrad is unsure if we've covered this before, but if so it was ages ago and thus here we are again. Art!
Here we see the iconic line-up of Jefferson Airplane back in the Summer of Love. In 1974 they essentially split in two, with a couple of original members going on to form their own band, Hot Tuna. Hopefully as in a pilaff as on it's own this w
ANYWAY the group then changed their name to Jefferson Starship, because they wanted a fresh start but also to continue to appeal to fans of their previous moniker. Art!
Their RAF tribute record
After an acrimonious split (are there any other kind?) their founding member Paul Kantner took legal action to prevent them using the 'Jefferson' part of the name, and they became simply - Art!
Right, that's enough starships for one day.
More Of "Space 1999"
Expect more reports like this as I work through a series I've not watched for 50 years, of which some scenes still echo in my mind. This time it was "Mission Of The Darians", where Moonbase Alpha encounters a city-sized spaceship broadcasting an emergency message. Art!
We are told that it's twenty miles long and five miles wide, and let me see if we can get a shot to establish scale and size. Art!
The Eagle sent in response gets tractor-beamed into the ship. It must have taken days to create that model, and we get a good fly-round view of it from the Eagle before it gets involuntarily docked.
To get the sense of scale across, there are several matte shots, which I'll show here. Art!
They must have paid a pretty penny for this painting, it gets used several times. Art!
Shades of 'Forbidden Planet', hmmm? They use this matte set again later on, twice, so again getting their money's worth.
There was another matte shot that I missed, so once again Google is your friend. Art!
I think this was supposed to be the derelict, abandoned and overgrown parts of the ship. Which, lest you have not realised yet, is a generation ship interrupted in mid-journey.
Hang On A Moment -
Conrad is currently waging "The Great War In Europe" on the Italian Front, and so decided to look up the author of "The White War", which is one of the few English-language accounts of the conflict.
Said author is Mark Thompson, but when I checked out "Rob's Military Book Barn" it was entirely absent.
I distinctly remember reading it. Did I dispose of it? <Horrors! Surely not!> Or was it a library book? Art!
I really don't feel like trawling through 500 books to find out yes or no.
More on this subject to come, you lucky people you.
Finally -
The weather is definitely brightening up, so I may go for my afternoon constitutional into Lesser Sodom. I need a lemon if I'm going to make that Smoked Mackerel Pilaff again, and it was surprisingly nice, thanks for asking, so the Co-Op and their remaindered chiller cabinet beckons.
* Unlike some other ex-presidents, he could fit through doorways and hatches.
** The question is, of course, which of his kids have mutant superpowers.
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