[AtLast]

Originally Posted by dreadgeek

Yes, I'm not sure what that point will be but I'm willing to bet that at this point, there are folks on the ground who are saying "I don't think we can stop this thing".

I know that folks don't usually think of scientists and engineers as heroes. But I want to ask everyone to take a moment to think about this:

Right now, on site in Japan, there are people in control rooms working in what are now becoming very hot (radioactively not thermally) conditions. There are ways to deal with exposure: everyone is going to be wearing a dosimeter, everyone will be wearing a mask to keep particulates out of their lungs, they'll be wearing protective clothing. But these are people who are in a hazardous area, the hazard is silent, invisible, and pervasive. You can't dodge it, you can't see it, you can't outrun it, and you have to do a job under conditions at the limit of human cognitive ability, on a system that is already stressed beyond its design specification. These are folks who *know* how nasty radiation sickness can be. They know what those alpha particles are doing to their bodies. They know what Strontium and Cesium can do. Now, I don't know that this happened but any kind of *humane* employer would have said "we can't tell you to stay, so we're going to ask for volunteers". I suspect that everyone on site is there because they volunteered. Unless you are a cop, a firefighter or in the military your employer generally isn't going to ask you to do something that you *know* could get you killed.

The operators on site are heroes. We may not think of them as square-jawed action-figures, but right now everyone of them is being as much a hero as any firefighter.

Cheers
Aj

I think you might about those really on "the fronts lines" of this are in volunteer status and for me, it is not a stretch to attach "hero" to them.

There are quite a few heros in fields of science - those that developed life saving medicines and surgical procedures would stand out for me. Many others, too.