Meteorologists need to know about weather conditions in the most inaccessible parts of the earth, but in many such places manned stations are almost impossible to maintain. The U.S. Weather Bureau and the Atomic Energy Commission now propose an automatic weather station that gets all the electricity and heat it needs from strontium 90, a long-lived radioisotope.
Strontium 90 is the notorious element in fallout that masquerades as calcium and lodges in human bones. But it is plentiful in the byproducts of plutonium manufacture, and the AEC's Oak Ridge National Laboratory, taking careful precautions, decided to use it. It was converted...
To continue reading:
or
Log-In
