Memoirs of a Space Engineer
A wonderful but all too short collection of stories from Doug Rickard.
Doug was from Australia and worked alongside NASA scientists when they came down under to set up the tracking stations for their various missions.
Check out
Memoirs of a Space Engineer
There is also a reference (in the
About Doug page) to this:
Doug also worked on the British Atomic Weapons Tests at Maralinga in South Australia in the late 1950s, and as a result of radiation received there he now has bone marrow cancer (myelofibrosis) which has forced his premature retirement.
For more information see: The Maralinga Cobalt 60 Incident
Unfortunately, that link has rotted away but fortunately, the wayback machine has a copy here:
The Maralinga Cobalt 60 Incident
It is amazing how brazenly cavalier we were about nuclear radiation and testing procedures at that time. We knew of the dangers but ignored them.
For more on the British tests in Australia, check out the Google Books copy of
Beyond Belief as well as
OCEANIA BOMB TESTS
Posted by DaveH at November 9, 2008 6:12 PM