Radioactive basketballs

USA Today on November 9th advertized on its front page "Aircraft carrier to host hoops: See how the USS Carl Vinson is turned into a basketball venue," and ran a large graphic in its sports section entitled "College basketball lands on the USS Carl Vinson." The President and First Lady are even reported to be attending the Veterans Day game between Michigan State and North Carolina. Interestingly, USA Today's coverage fails to mention that the carrier is nuclear powered.

This is not the only time basketball and nuclear power have mixed. Bob Pollard at Union of Concerned Scientists in his classic book The Nugget File reported one of the strangest nuclear accidents ever. Staff at a nuclear power plant decided to block shut a large diameter pipe with a basketball wrapped in duct tape to match the pipe's inner diameter, so they could perform repairs on the high-level radioactive waste storage pool. The pressure of the water shot the basketball out, risking a pool drain down and catastrophic radioactive waste fire. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's response? Advising that basketballs not be used for such purposes in the future!

In addition, the Utah Jazz NBA basketball team's arena is named after EnergySolutions, the largest radioactive waste company in the U.S. And the spherical Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, MA bears a strange resemblance to early General Electric atomic reactors such as Big Rock Point in Michigan!