Released : March 24 2005
Written by : Michelle Dunlop

TWIN FALLS -- Karl Grossman thought it would be a simple story.

Instead, he stumbled upon the story of his lifetime -- or, at least, one that has consumed the past two decades of his life.

Working as an investigative journalist in New York, Grossman began researching the nation's ambitions to fuel space missions with nuclear power.

"I'm driving to work on Jan. 28, 1986," Grossman said. "I hear on the radio the Challenger blew up."

Shortly afterward, Grossman broke the story in The Nation that the space shuttle's next mission would have been a nuclear one. A similar explosion of a space shuttle carrying nuclear material such as plutonium could have proven deadly for thousands, if not millions of citizens, according to nuclear researchers.

Grossman has been chasing the story of space nuclear matters ever since. That same topic brought him to The Lamphouse Theatre in Twin Falls on Wednesday evening.

Last November, the Department of Energy announced its intent to consolidate a program that uses plutonium-238 to produce batteries used in space and national defense applications at the Idaho National Laboratory.

Grossman warned an audience of about 15 people that the DOE may not stop with this consolidation. INL has a history of working on nuclear applications intended for space projects, he said. And, NASA and the DOE intend to begin work on a nuclear-propelled rocket -- a project Grossman suspects could come to INL if the plutonium consolidation is approved.

"As remote as you might think you are -- you're on the front lines. You're at ground zero," Grossman said.

"This is wrong for space," he said. "This is wrong for Idaho."

Other areas of the country have already caught on to the risks of plutonium production and nuclear space projects, he said. In Florida, groups protested the 1997 launch of Cassini, a space probe that carried 72.3 pounds of plutonium.

"One of the reasons I think Idaho is eyed for this is down in Florida, they're all over this," Grossman said. "Maybe they think they're not going to have this kind of outpouring in Idaho Falls."

The Snake River Alliance, the nuclear watchdog organization that brought Grossman to Idaho, hopes to organize an outpouring of opposition to the DOE's consolidation proposal when the group hosts informational meetings in the near future. After the DOE releases its environmental impact statement, the agency will hold public meetings in mid-May.

"Our goal is to get as many people as we can," said Alliance spokeswoman Ester Ceja. "We want to send the message loud and clear -- we want potatoes not plutonium in Idaho."

Times-News reporter Michelle Dunlop can be reached at 735-3237 or by e-mail at mdunlop@magicvalley.com .

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