9/11/2023 0 Comments Radium watches reactorĪfter his time on USS Enterprise, Hahn enlisted in the Marine Corps and was stationed in North Carolina. After a four-year tour, he achieved interior communications specialist with a rank of petty officer, third class (pay grade E-4). He was then encouraged to join the military, so he enlisted in the Navy, assigned to the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Enterprise as an undesignated seaman ( pay grade E-3). He enrolled in a metallurgy program there, but frequently skipped classes. His father and stepmother first encouraged him to attend Macomb Community College. While he did graduate from high school, he lacked any direction or plans thereafter. Hahn became depressed after the scandal, a problem exacerbated by the breakup with his then-girlfriend and the suicide of his mother in early 1996. EPA scientists believed that Hahn's life expectancy may have been shortened due to his exposure to radioactivity, particularly since he spent long periods in the small, enclosed shed with large amounts of radioactive material and only minimal safety precautions, but he refused their recommendation that he be examined at the Enrico Fermi Nuclear Generating Station. Hahn refused medical evaluation for radiation exposure. Unknown to officials, his mother, fearful that she would lose her house if the full extent of the radiation were known, had already collected the majority of the radioactive material and thrown it away in the conventional garbage. On June 26, 1995, the EPA, having designated Hahn's mother's property a Superfund hazardous materials cleanup site, dismantled the shed and its contents and buried them as low-level radioactive waste in Utah. Alarmed, Hahn began to dismantle his experiments, but in a chance encounter, police discovered his activities, which triggered a Federal Radiological Emergency Response Team involving the FBI and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. His homemade neutron source was often incorrectly referred to as a reactor, but it did emit measurable levels of radiation, likely exceeding 1,000 times normal background radiation. Hahn ultimately hoped to create a breeder reactor, using low-level isotopes to transform samples of thorium and uranium into fissile isotopes. His "reactor" was a bored-out block of lead, and he used lithium from $1,000 worth of purchased batteries to purify the thorium ash using a Bunsen burner. Hahn diligently amassed radioactive material by collecting small amounts from household products, such as americium from smoke detectors, thorium from camping lantern mantles, radium from clocks, and tritium from gunsights. He later received a merit badge in Atomic Energy and became fascinated with the idea of creating a breeder reactor in his home. He was inspired in part by reading The Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments and tried to collect samples of every element in the periodic table, including the radioactive ones. Hahn was fascinated by chemistry and spent years conducting amateur chemistry experiments, which sometimes caused small explosions and other mishaps. He was subsequently treated for mental illness, and his death at age 39 was related to drug and alcohol use. As an adult, Hahn served in the United States Navy and United States Marine Corps. Hahn was also the subject of Silverstein's 2004 book The Radioactive Boy Scout. While the incident was not widely publicized initially, it became better known following a 1998 Harper's Magazine article by journalist Ken Silverstein. Hahn attained Eagle Scout rank shortly after his lab was dismantled. His mother's property was cleaned up by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ten months later as a Superfund cleanup site. When Hahn warned them that the material was radioactive, the police contacted federal authorities. While he never managed to build a reactor, in August 1994, Hahn's progress attracted the attention of local police when they found material in his vehicle that troubled them during a stop for a separate matter. Hahn's goal was to build and demonstrate a homemade breeder reactor. Building a neutron source in his mother's backyardĭavid Charles Hahn (Octo– September 27, 2016), sometimes called the "Radioactive Boy Scout" or the "Nuclear Boy Scout", was an American nuclear radiation enthusiast who built a homemade neutron source at the age of seventeen.Ī scout in the Boy Scouts of America, Hahn conducted his experiments in secret in a backyard shed at his mother's house in Commerce Township, Michigan.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |