Basejumper.com - archive

How many young BASE jumpers have heard of this place, Chernobyl?

http://vimeo.com/112681885

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CODnzRkvS44

Here the one without the shitty sound
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egxLQPSgXlg

I have a healthy interest in nuclear technology. I'm not an expert and never studied it formally but I have a good understanding of the power station, the cause of the accident, the effects of it and the current state of the area and exclusion zone.

My ONE goal as BASE jumper was to jump the cooling tower over the doomed reactor. It was a genuine sad day for me when the sarcophagus team removed it earlier this year. It's a GREAT thing it is being done, but I do wish I would have been able to make that one jump before it happened.

(FYI, the plan was to access the local building wearing complete self-contained suit [sealed suit with air supply] and use throw-away parachute gear. There is no way I would bring home any of that nasty dust)

I wonder if any of our local comrades ever jumped it. Yes, it was tall enough. Yes, it would be a very technical jump for a lot of reasons.

No. It's just isn't possible with that amount of security around the site itself. It was about 10 times tighter than the security on DUGA site, and is about 100 times tighter now, since the war started.

Calvin, maybe one of these sites would interest you?

http://www.processindustryforum.com/...ics/nucleardisasters

what trips me out the most is that though all the people of the area immediately evacuated for the obvious reasons, all these years later, the vegatative growth has gone on unstopped. theres so much growth as far as trees and shrubs in the once-human occupied areas, and it makes me wonder how much or how little plants are affected by such insanely high levels of radiation. its beautiful but its so eery at the same time.

Have it and many like it committed to memory. Sadly there are a lot of sites similar to this that are riddled with propaganda and political motive. I can't deal with that BS. I'm a scientist.

The Chernobyl Accident was bad. Very very bad. So bad that it annoys me that it is in the same destructive category as the Fukushima Accident. Though accurate, the INES scale is annoying in its lack of resolution in the 7th level.

Vegetative growth (genetically) is much simpler compared to fauna, and humans are considerably more complex (in lifestyle, lifespan, awareness, etc) than animal life. Make no mistake, there has been considerable environmental impact on the exclusion zone including plant life. This impact is not plainly obvious, but there are a considerable amount of scientific papers detailing the changes in the area.

It's no surprise that the local flora has 'reclaimed' the area and that there are still local animal populations that from initial viewing (without comparing to what WAS there before '86) seem unaffected by the increased ionizing radiation.

In general what are some of the changes that happened in the area? Genetic mutations in both plants and animals? Extinction of certain types of plants and animals? What about water contamination and the downstream communities? What, if anything has been done to remediate the area? What are the future plans for the area?

There has been a lot of change in the area, genetically obviously. I don't know about the extinctions. the biggest thing is the simple microorganisms that decompose a normal forest.

The biggest issue is human consumption and exposure to ionizing radiation. it IS an issue. I'm not sure on specifics of where to start, they are numerous. I can answer a specific question.

The new sarcafougous is a very good thing, it slows/stops the increase in airborne radiation leakage. it needs to happen.