I Women, subs and nuclear radiation
Women are due to start serving on nuclear subs in 2012. But have concerns about radiation exposure been adequately explored?

Should women sailors be allowed on submarines? The United States is poised to repeal the ban, and the first women are scheduled to serve aboard subs by 2012. But we must ask some serious questions before changing the policy.

During the Cold War, long before becoming a doctor, I served as a nuclear reactor operator aboard a fast-attack submarine. During that time, I often considered the thought of women as fellow crew members. There was never any question in my mind that women would be as capable as men. The issues of limited space and the need for separate quarters could be easily resolved by a visit to any of the unisex bathrooms found on our college campuses. Furthermore, U.S. submarines already have separate sleeping spaces for chief petty officers and for commissioned officers; partitioning another area for women would be easy. Finally, there is ample precedence for both sexes living together in prolonged isolation and close confinement — on the International Space Station, for example, and in Operation Deep Freeze in Antarctica.

So why would I see any problem with allowing women aboard submarines?

It is the matter of exposure to radiation that is most unsettling to me. It is the genetically sensitive tissue in women that is intimately involved in the process of childbearing that needs to be addressed, researched and commented on by our Navy’s leaders before they change the policy.

While sperm from men are frequently changing and thereby present a reduced vulnerability to radiation consequences, women have ovaries that contain radiation-sensitive tissue fixed for the life of the woman. Damage to the egg cells remains with the woman until that egg produces a baby. An even greater concern is that women who (by design or by accident) become pregnant would then possess the most radiation-sensitive tissue known: a developing fetus with a small number of cells that are rapidly dividing and thus vastly more sensitive to radiation.

It is widely believed by many that advanced shielding systems can adequately protect personnel from radiation and minimize the risk to women. This may be the case, perhaps, for larger ships, where increased distance of personnel from reactors can be protective. But on submarines, the nuclear reactor is near the center of the vessel, and sailors need to pass by that radiation-emitting system to get to the engine room watch stations, often several times a day. If a female sailor must stand watch, she will have to pass near the reactor four to six times a day, resulting in exposing a potential fetus to increased neutron and gamma energy as many as 350 to 400 times during a two-month patrol.

Of further significance is the kind of radiation the reactor is emitting; not just gamma energy, like chest X-rays or mammograms. A nuclear reactor generates gamma energy, slow neutron energy (creating five times more tissue damage than gamma energy) and fast neutron energy (creating 10 times more tissue damage), as well as other types of less consequence. My former engineering officer recently informed me that he had absorbed about 5,000 millirems during his time aboard our submarine.

In civilian life, a pregnant woman must first don a lead shield to protect her unborn baby before she has a chest X-ray (delivering about 10 millirems of gamma energy) or for a mammogram (70 millirems of gamma energy). But lead shields on submarines do not entirely protect personnel from the far more damaging neutron energy. Although the neutron shield system used helps reduce exposure, it is impossible to eliminate all neutron energy from reaching crew members. If a female submariner became pregnant just before deployment, the first weeks at sea could expose a tiny, radiation-sensitive fetus to significant radiation during a time when the fetus is at highest risk and before the woman may even know she’s pregnant.

How much radiation does it take to cause harm to fetal tissue? We really don’t know. Any radiation is harmful to dividing cells, but detectable damage is much harder to determine. We know that fetal doses between 1,000 millirems and 10,000 millirems create a “low” level of congenital malformations, mental retardation, uterine growth retardation or childhood cancer. Is “low” acceptable? Is “low” reassuring if a future baby is not perfect? Would “low” absolve the government and taxpayers from liability?

I call on all those who are working to change this policy to publicly address these questions before introducing women into the nuclear submarine environment:

•How much radiation would women be allowed to absorb before removing them from the nuclear environment?

•How many back-up nuclear watch standers will need to be available to replace women who have received excessive radiation, and how will this action affect the mission in enemy territory?

•What screening will be initiated on the day of departure to guarantee that the submarine is not heading out with a pregnant sailor aboard?

•What plans need to be established to remove a female sailor from the submarine, should she become pregnant during the deployment?

•What are the maximum levels of accumulated radiation acceptable to the ovaries of non-pregnant sailors who might be planning a family in the future, and at what point would a woman need to be removed if those levels were exceeded?

The public deserves answers to these questions, and female sailors volunteering for service aboard a nuclear submarine must be better informed about their risk before it is too late for them, or for the children they hope to bear.

Roger C. Dunham, a doctor of internal medicine, is the author of “Spy Sub: A Top-Secret Mission to the Bottom of the Pacific.”
Copyright © 2010, The Los Angeles Times

believe there are far more serious concerns than just the sexual, social, politically correct, and traditional items discussed widely on many forums across the United States. My biggest concern with this sweeping policy change is outlined in my Los Angeles Times editorial last week, following:

Please add “into commission” after “SSBN-630 Gold crew!

Rick,
Wow! Just the thought of some woman invading the unholy sactuary of a submarine really ticks some folks off, doesn’t it? After all this time of having female officers in command positions, you would think that sooner or later it would have to happen to the silent service. I say more power to the ladies! Any woman with the guts to go to sea on a ship designed to sink deserves the full respect of all those who went before them.

And as for the enviromental arguments being postulated by Chief Mason and Dr. Dunham, where were they when I was at sea getting sprayed by radiation every day? I used to sleep in a bunk that was bolted to the torpedo racks, right above a SubRoc. When I was messcooking, we used to spend a lot of time in the forward port aux tank loading TDU’s while underway. Some guys used the reactor tunnel as a gym area. And now they want to argue that the submarine environment is no place for a lady? What about the men, is the Navy playing Russian Roullette with their lives?

I was proud to go into the Navy, but like any military organization, it has it’s problems. When it comes to questioning the future qualifications of a female officer to lead or command, I would have to say I served under a few male officers that make the Dilbert cartoon characters look absolutely brilliant. Since there will be such a small group of these officers, any wash-out will greatly affect the percentages when it comes to monitoring their effectiveness. How many male officers get reprimanded, bypassed, and removed from command every year? With such a large pool, the numbers look insignificant to some, yet any depreciation in the integrity of the service could cause ireparable harm to the enlisted and officers of any command. Putting anyone in a command position is always a crapshoot. If it works, great. If not, then you start again, and hope for the best.

I was proud to follow one of my uncles into the Navy, as were two of my brothers who went into the Army and Air Force. I can’t speak for them, but I do believe that the Navy is at least doing the right thing, allowing these women that wish to serve their country, by giving them the full range of possibillities that lie ahead. I hope it all works out for them, and wish them fair sailing.

P F McFarland (farlymac)
USS Spadefish exTMSN(SS)
Keeping the bubble since 1972

I always wonder if I would have followed my father’s footsteps into the service if I’d been a boy. Always liked the boats, my dad’s stories about being on patrol, and the submarine community – but for a girl, that particular door just wasn’t open, only for boys.

I can see that it’s not going to be an easy adaptation. I never questioned the no-women rules because it did make some sense to me, and I do wonder how the experiment is going to work out – but still, at some level, I think it’s wonderful that if a submariner’s little girl today admires what her father does, there’s at least a chance that she can actually think of growing up to do the same thing.

Of course I’d say that I’m lacking in submariner potential in a few respects other than just gender – my sister apparently got ALL the rational, logical, chemical-engineer genes, there wasn’t a quarter of a teaspoonful left for me – I’m more a right-brain creative-mess type. I’d be a disaster on a submarine.

It seems that forever the zipperheads have been whittling away at “sacred traditions (many quite practical). It’s kind of what our leaders today seem to think that our “Constitution” is a “living”document and needs to be changed or done over. Leave the Subs alone. Obviously this is all political as these things usually are and have no real substantial purpose.

This is no cause for the GI Jane’s of the world. Let’s send them a clear message as we did this past election. Just say “NO”. Let’s make these facts against this public which seem to me to out way any special interest groups utopian ideals.

and of course we’re all too dumb to know any better than to not put “foreign objects” down a marine head…

Seriously though — as I said earlier, “I can see that it’s not going to be an easy adaptation. I never questioned the no-women rules because it did make some sense to me, and I do wonder how the experiment is going to work out”.

I just don’t buy toiletries, tampons, or the jealousy of wives as being valid arguments against women being able to serve on submarines.

The story about the first woman submarine commander (Jodi Bennington) is avaialbe on the her web site.

I am not providing my complete name since I am still supporting the USN and do not care to cause my company any trouble.

I qualified on a diesel boat as an enlisted and as an officer and served on three diesels and numerous nuclear fast attacks and one FBM. I also spent some time on ADM Rickover staff. I have also been supporting navy surface combatants in the field for over 20 years. My wife and I have supported the USO and assisted the departure and return of service members to the war zones.
My observations are that the military has not been transparent at all about problems with females in the military. Many females have been sent home from the war zones by themselves because of pregnancies (accidental as well as planned) leaving other deployed military to extend their deployments. Many male female relationships aboard ships have resulted in punishments that are most (or only) observable by the ever growing number of COs/XOs that are being relieved of duty for sexual improprieties.
I know of incidents which were not reported like the two CPOs (male and female) found in the rack together on one ships commissioning day; and the female LT who was first in her academy class who was quietly transferred from one DDG because of her affair with an enlisted on board. Just consider the CO and XO of a mine sweep recently relieved for having an affair with each other. I submit that the problems men and women together in the military on combatants is considerable and actually is not conquerable. Hormones will prevail! It is not any more the women’s fault then it is the man’s.
The problems are potentially very serious and could well result in the loss of a battle which, by the way, is why we are all out there-to win that is!
I relate an interesting anecdote I observed on one new DDG which was in port in San Diego a few years back. I observed four sailors, three males and one very attractive female, having a close conversation on the mess deck. The males were obviously vying for her attention when the female said “I sure could go for a coke!”. The three males scattered all at once looking for a coke machine. I extend this action to a period at sea where this vying for attention might occur, with the expected jealousies, during a battle or even during a difficult navigational passage. These are the hormonal problems that no one can really overcome and that will decrease our readiness.
On the subject of women on subs I submit that most subs will eventually have to be FRAMed in order to provide the privacy that is lacking for females and the the politically correct will demand. ( I served on a FRAMed old radar picket diesel which was very cheap to add a compartment on compared to a modern nuclear boat). One female poster on a blog out of a New London
newspaper suggested that the women could very easily take the Chief;s quarters. I wondered if she was related to the CNO?

I called my senator who is head of the Senate Armed Services Committee and the committee itself and asked that they ask the Admirals just how much it will cost in the long run to modify subs to accommodate women both new and old. I suggested that it would cost billions and that we can not afford it. No matter, the Senate Armed Forces Committee never called in the Navy and just let the time expire resulting in the navy being allowed to do what it wanted without review.

WINNING THE BATTLE IS THE NAME OF THE GAME!!