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Comment by hanbura

Satellites and space stations are neither aerodynamic nor dense. If anything survives reentry, drag will slow it down until it might still damage a regular building but will do nothing to an impact resistant concrete dome designed to resist plane crashes.

A big meteor could punch through both the concrete dome and the underlying steel containment. If that happens, we will probably be glad it hit the reactor and not nearby New York City. As long the meteor doesn't replace the steel containment structure with a crater but merely damages it (after obliterating the dome), we have at worst a second Fukushima. What made Chernobyl so bad was that the cooling water caused a giant steam explosion, carrying radioactive material high into the atmosphere. That failure mode is impossible in any reactor operated today.

parent hanbura 8 years ago

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