-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject: Speak out on Plutonium in Space!!!
Date: 05-Oct-97 at 15:05
From: "Susan Place", INTERNET:susan_placeacgate.csuchico.edu
Date: 5 Oct 1997 12:14:55 U
From: "Susan Place" <susan_place@macgate.csuchico.edu>
Subject: Speak out on Plutonium in Space!!!
Dear Friends and Colleagues,
Geographers from northern California (Susan Place) and southern California (Ben Wisner)
URGENTLY call to your attention NASA's intention to launch a
deep space probe later THIS MONTH loaded with 72 pounds of plutonium. As geog
raphers, environmental scientists, disaster experts, ..., mothers and
fathers, human beings we need to let Congress, the media, the President (who
has final launch authority), and NASA know about our concerns.
In brief, the failure rate of the launch vehicle is about 10%. Although NASA
swears that the plutonium payload would not be damaged if the vehicle
explodes or falls into the sea off the Florida coast, there is considerable
engineering and scientific doubt about their environmental impact analysis.
Even if the probe is successfully launched, in order to build up speed to
reach its goal (Saturn), this so-called Cassini probe will "sling slot"
around Venus and miss the earth (so it is planned) by a few hundred miles at
43,000 miles per hour! A number of physicists and a former safety officer for NASA have
gone on record that a slight navigational error would cause
Cassini to re-enter the Earth's atmosphere with the possible result that the
plutonium would vaporize and be distributed around the planet in the upper atmosphere.
NASA is dicing with our children's lifes. The irony is that waiting a few years and
collaborating with Japanese and European efforts, a new generation
of solar power technology would provide the energy that NASA says is
necessary to power the probe when it reaches Saturn.
Even before one considers WHY NASA is so interested in putting plutonium in
space, there is ample reason to post-pone this launch indefinitely until a thorough public
debate and INTERNATIONAL scientific investigation of the
possible impacts can take place. Our own suspicion is that NASA (as part of
what President Eisenhower called the "military industrial complex") wants to
find uses for the nuclear arms industry in a post-cold war environment. Even
more ominously, this could be the "atoms-for-peace(ful)"-exploration-of-space
that softens up public opinion to access a "star wars" deployment of nuclear
weapons in space.
Please inform yourselves more fully by viewing Internet resources such as:
http://www.afn.org/~fcpj/space/cassini/facts/htm
or you could call the Florida Coalition for Peace and Justice at
352-468-3295.
This Cassini story was recently awarded a prize from the group Fairness and
Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) for being the "most censored story" in the US during 1996. It
is finally out of the bag, and we must act URGENTLY to delay
the launch. NASA is quite embarrassed by the suddenly explosion of publicity
and scientific criticism (including public statements by a former 20
plus-year veteran chief of disaster planning and safety at Cape Kennedy). As
a part of their "spin doctoring" you can also access debate and criticism of
the Cassini project from NASA's internet home page.
In an era of global environmental and humanitarian emergencies (Rwanda
genocide and mass exodus, Indonesian fires, etc.), there is a danger of
communicating "urgent" needs too often. However we believe that your
considered action on Cassini is of vital importance.
Warmest regards,
SUSAN PLACE (Chair, Dept. of Geography, CSU Chico)
BEN WISNER (Director, International Studies and Prof. of Geography, CSU Long
Beach)