News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on NASA completes full-power tests of small, portable nuclear reactor. Parent comment

Re:NASA completes full-power tests of small, portable nuclea... by philipkglass on Thursday May 03, 2018 @10:14PM (#16991730)
Here's a photo series from 2005 at a Swedish nuclear fuel facility showing how uranium turns into fuel pellets and fuel rod bundles:

https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/multimedia/photoessays/train...

At all stages the material can be handled with no more protection than gloves. It is roughly as dangerous as handling lead fishing weights until the fuel actually attains criticality.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:NASA completes full-power tests of small, portable nuclea... by IdeaHamstir on Thursday May 03, 2018 @10:39PM (#16991832)
It still produces a fair bit of alpha, so avoid particulate ingestion.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:NASA completes full-power tests of small, portable nuclea... by MertsA on Saturday May 05, 2018 @10:58AM (#17002058)
I don't know why people downvoted this, it's entirely correct. Although I guess the larger concern than the radiation would be the heavy metal poisoning but in any case it's still fine, just treat it like you would any other heavy metal.
[ Parent | on HN ]