Robots throw doubt on 'road map' to control Fukushima crisis

[nadinbrzezinski]

By Mark Clayton, Staff writer / April 18, 2011

Robots prowling inside debris-strewn reactor buildings at the heavily damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant detected levels of radiation that throw doubt on whether workers will be able to enter the plant for any extended period of time.



Exploring the first floor of the No.1 reactor building for about an hour, a robot provided by a Massachusetts-based company rolled through doors it opened with
its manipulator arms, detecting radiation leaking at a rate of 49 millisieverts per hour. That means a worker could stay in the building for no more than five hours before reaching the lawful annual limit for nuclear workers of 250 millisierverts.

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2011/0418/Robots-throw-doubt-on-road-map-to-control-Fukushima-crisis

For reference, the same thing started to happen also at TMI and Chernobyl, until the Russians decided that they'd have to sacrifice people, thousands of them, to win this battle. Of course this was a command economy with the history of the Great Patriotic War.