NUKES IN SPACE: THE FINAL FRONTIER?
On October 6TH, NASA is planning the "Cassini" launch
from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida with 72.3 pounds of deadly
plutonium-238 on board. The probe will use the plutonium to power its electrical
instruments during its voyage to explore Saturn. Dr. Helen Caldicott, founder
of Physicians for Social Responsibility, states plutonium "is so toxic
that less than one-millionth of a gram-an invisible particle-is a carcinogenic
dose. One pound, if uniformly distributed, could hypothetically induce lung
cancer in every person on Earth."1
There are two key periods of extreme danger when the plutonium can be released
and kill people:
1. If the Titan IV rocket, which will take the Cassini probe into space,
explodes on the launch pad or in the atmosphere-as the Challenger did in
1986-then the lethal plutonium could spread across wide areas of Florida.
2. Once the Titan IV achieves orbit, the Cassini probe will be sent into
space. Cassini's propulsion source doesn't have the power to send it straight
to Saturn, so NASA plans to send it to Venus first, then, after two swings
around Venus, hurtle it back toward Earth. The idea is to use the Earth's
gravity to increase Cassini's velocity so it can pass by Jupiter and then
go to Saturn. Cassini is to pass just 312 miles [revised now to 496.8 miles]
above Earth in what NASA calls a "slingshot maneuver" or "flyby."
But too deep a descent could cause Cassini to disintegrate in the Earth's
75-mile-high atmosphere. Then, according to City University of New York
nuclear physics professor Dr. Michio Kaku, the plutonium-"the most
toxic chemical known to science"-would "shower down with a tremendous
tragedy for the people of the Earth as a result."
NASA's Record of Failure
NASA claims that the plutonium on board the Cassini probe has almost no
chance of contaminating the earth. They say that the Titan IV rocket won't
crash during the lift-off. However, the Titan IV rocket is the same kind
of rocket that on August 2, 1993, exploded over the Pacific Ocean, destroying
its payload containing a $1 billion U.S. spy satellite system. Indeed, 3
of the 24 known U.S. space missions involving nuclear power have met with
accidents, as well as 6 out of the 39 Russian missions. Space missions are
clearly not as safe as NASA would like the public to believe.
NASA claims that even if the Titan IV rocket crashes or disintegrates in
the atmosphere, the radioisotope thermal generator (RTG) containers which
hold the plutonium will not erupt, keeping the radioactive substance in
a safe form. However, NASA's own research brings that claim into question.
In the Final Safety Analysis Report, General Electric (makers of the RTG)
reported a test which "resulted in the complete destruction of the
RTG."2 The Department of Energy threw out the test, stating that the
pressures which resulted in the explosion would never happen in the real
world. Since then, the public has learned that the DOE conducts single-event
failure testing, while in the real world, multi-event failures which lead
to disaster (explosion, fire, flying fragments, etc.) are more likely to
occur.
On April 21, 1964, the Pentagon's SNAP-9A nuclear device fell to Earth,
disintegrated in the atmosphere, and released its 2.1 pounds of plutonium
into the air. Scientists later conducted samples around the world and found
"SNAP-9A debris to be present at all continents and all latitudes."
Dr. John Gofman, professor emeritus of medical physics at U.C. Berkeley
and former member of the Manhattan Project, attributes an increased rate
of lung cancer around the world to the SNAP9-A incident..4
This was not the only nuclear space crash in recent history. In November
1996, a Russian Mars probe fell from space and landed in the mountains of
Chile and Bolivia (despite assurances that it had fallen "harmlessly"
in the Pacific Ocean). Chilean observers and scientists reported that they
saw the probe burning up in the atmosphere, which means it would have likely
released a half-pound of plutonium into the air. With a history of such
accidents, evidence of failures, and lack of public control over information,
can we trust 72.3 pounds of plutonium in NASA's latest space probe?5
Risking a Human Tragedy
NASA REPORTS that if the worst-case scenario occurs-the rocket disintegrates
in the atmosphere, releasing plutonium-"approximately 5 billion of
the 7 to 8 billion people on Earth in 1999 could receive 99% or more of
the radiation exposure." NASA then estimates that in 50 years, roughly
2,300 people would develop lung cancer and die from inhaling that plutonium.
But NASA's estimate of what it labels the "health effects" of
an explosion may be grossly and tragically understated. Dr. Ernest Sternglass,
professor emeritus of radiological physics at the University of Pittsburgh,
has determined that NASA used inappropriate methods to estimate the number
of deaths that would occur, basing their estimate on high-level radiation
standards derived from the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombing. More recent evidence
suggests that the low-level radiation, which people would be exposed to
if Cassini disintegrates, presents a far greater danger.6 Sternglass warns
that the actual death toll from plutonium exposure may be as high as 30
to 40 million people.
NASA Ignores a Safe Alternative
NASA claims that a nuclear-powered Cassini probe is the only option available
to reach Saturn. However, NASA's own Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) essentially
refutes this claim. The plutonium on board the space probe is to be used
only as a power source to produce electricity for instruments on the probe,
not for propulsion. In preparation for the Galileo mission (a previous space
probe containing the RTG-encased plutonium), NASA also claimed that nuclear
power was the only method available. As the Florida Coalition for Peace
& Justice sought an injunction to stop Galileo, NASA lied in Federal
Court about the need to use plutonium. Just a few weeks after the launch,
JPL was forced through the Freedom of Information Act to release a study
stating that the Galileo mission could have been performed with solar power
"without changing the mission sequence or impacting science objectives."7
Solar power could be used on the Cassini mission if NASA desired. In 1994,
the European Space Agency (ESA) announced the development of new high-performance
solar cells. ESA physicist Carla Signorini stated, "If given the money
to do the work, within five years [ESA] could have solar cells ready to
power a space mission to Saturn."8 If the Cassini mission can be performed
safely with solar power, why is NASA taking such a large risk by using deadly
plutonium?
Endnotes
1Helen Caldicott, Nuclear Madness, 1994, p. 81.
2Quoted in Chris Bryson, "Cassini-NASA's Millennial Nuclear Nightmare,"
Christian Science Monitor, Dec. 17, 1996.
3Final Safety Analysis Report for the Galileo Mission. Prepared by General
Electric Astro Space for the U.S. Dept. of Energy, Vol. II, Book 2, Dec.
15, 1988, P. G-5.
4Karl Grossman, "Risking the World: Nuclear Proliferation in Space,"
Covert Action Quarterly, Summer 1996, p. 61.
5Final Environmental Impact Statement for the Cassini Mission, Solar System
Exploration Div., Office of Outer Space Science, NASA, June 1995, pp. 4-76.
6Bryson, "Cassini."
7Grossman, "Risking the World," p. 62.
8Ibid., p. 58.
Written by Daniel Chong, edited by Karina Wood. [Adapted by Doret Kollerer
for this article.]
Nuclear Physicist Dr. Michio Kaku
Dr. Michio Kaku is one of the world's leading authorities on Einstein's
Unified Field Theory, attempting to complete Einstein's dream of a theory
of all known forces which control the universe. He is the co-founder of
string field theory and a pioneer in superstring theory, the leading candidate
for this theory. He has spoken at numerous international physics conferences
on relativity and the quantum theory, including Moscow, Paris, London, Oxford,
Cambridge, Edinburgh, Berlin. He is the author of 9 books (including Hyperspace,
a national best-seller) and over 70 scientific articles in physics journals
such as Nuclear Physics, Physical Review, and Physics Letters. His technical
books (Introduction to Superstrings and Quantum Field Theory: A Modern Introduction)
are required reading for scores of Ph.D. graduate students in major physics
laboratories around the world. He received his Ph.D. in theoretical physics
from the Radiation Laboratory at U. C. Berkeley in 1972. He taught at Princeton
in 1973 as a research associate, and is currently the Henry Semat Prof.
of Theoretical Physics at the Graduate Center of the City Univ. of New York.
He has been a visiting professor at the Institute for Advanced Study at
Princeton, where Einstein worked, and New York Univ. He's a Fellow of the
American Physical Society, an honor held by about 10% of the nation's top
physicists.
NASA bureaucrats have claimed that a maximum of 2,300 people could be killed
(via cancer over a 50-year period) from an accident with the Cassini probe.
However, by carefully retracing their calculations, line by line, one can
see that they have taken the lowest possible estimates at every step in
their calculation. NASA is not considering the maximum possible accident
at all.
The 3 steps where they underestimate the risks are:
1. They assume that only a few percent of the plutonium will actually reach
the ground and be released into a populated area. (A more physically realistic
estimate would conclude that perhaps 30 to 60% of the plutonium may be released
into a populated area.)
2. They assume that the plutonium will fall within a small region of the
earth. One NASA calculation has the plutonium confined to within about a
square mile. But obviously, this does not factor in the wind, which is known
to carry dust particles for 50 miles and beyond.
3. They assume a low population density, not a major urban center.
They are able to conclude that only 2,300 will die in a Cassini accident
by consistently taking the lowest possible estimates at each point in this
calculation, so I estimate that they can easily be off by 50 to 100 times,
which would push the casualty figures into the hundreds of thousands, using
their own calculation as the starting point. I conclude, therefore, that
their calculation is self-serving, and borders on scientific dishonesty.
Their computer calculations are also suspect. They use the same discredited
methodology (e.g. event tree analysis) which is used for nuclear power plants,
and which failed completely to predict Three Mile Island and Chernobyl.
In particular, they don't factor in human failure, multiple failures, common-mode
failures, and design flaws, which actually have caused most of the great
disasters of the 20th century. In other words, their computer programs are
largely a waste of taxpayers money. NASA bureaucrats have thus committed
a grave error: believing their own press releases, and placed ideology before
the laws of physics.
Instead of using computer programs, which are misleading, one should look
at the track record of actual failures. A chain is no stronger than its
weakest link, which is the Titan IV booster, which has a failure rate of
1 in 20. The probability of a major accident is therefore not one in a thousand
or one in a million, but 1 in 20.
Alan Kohn, former Emergency Preparedness Operations Officer
Alan Kohn is former Emergency Preparedness Operations officer on the Galileo
and Ulysses missions and a member of the Radiological Emergency Force Group
and the RTG Contingency Working Group, responsible for the safety of the
government employees at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station and Kennedy Space
Center. The following is excerpted from his speech at the Florida Coalition
for Peace and Justice demonstration outside the gates of the Cape Canaveral
Air Force Station, June 14, 1997:
Let me tell you, they didn't even let me do that job. I was told that the
job was cosmetic, that nothing was going to happen, and I should just sit
and counsel everyone in the radiation control center and do nothing, and
in case...the unlikely event of disaster would take place, I could take
all protective measures real time. The only protective measure I could have
taken at that time, of course, would have been to wet my pants. And my own
immediate management told me: Lay off, keep a low profile, don't let the
public know; above all, don't let the protest groups know that there is
any danger at all.
I disobeyed orders. I provided that all the buildings should be turned into
fall-out shelters, that air conditioning be shut off, that buildings be
sealed, the doors be sealed, that people who were going to work outside...be
put in bunny suits and given gas masks with HEPA filters. I provided washdowns.
I told them no visitors. They brought visitors out anyway. And by the way,
in the mission control center when I said no visitors...people applauded
me because they agreed with me. They didn't agree with me publicly, but
the applause was enough to show me that on the government side of those
fences, there are a lot of people who agree...but out of misguided loyalty...they
think they don't have the freedom- to speak out.
I disagree. The first loyalty is to the public....to the taxpayer....to
each other, to our own families....We were told by NASA that the odds against
the Cassini blowing up and releasing radiation is 1,500 to one. Those are
pretty poor odds.....Don't let this launch go forward with 72-plus pounds
of plutonium....If you're going to keep quiet about an issue like this,
then your jobs aren't worth a bucket of warm spit. If you're going to give
up your soul and your conscience just to keep your jobs, the jobs aren't
worth it.
...I had resistance from many in management when I converted the buildings
to fall-out shelters and when I did all the other work I did to protect
the government workers.... I got away with doing the job I did against opposition,
and then I got rewarded with all kinds of awards and thank-yous after I
had done the job. That didn't take away the fact that we were willing to
risk the public by doing these launches.
How would we have protected the public? We had representatives from . .
. 14 to 17 government agencies, including FEMA and Brevard Emergency Management
Associations . . . they were going to monitor the fall-out as the plutonium
fell on your heads. . . . And what could they have done to stop that plutonium
from falling on your heads if it was a real-time emergency? Exactly nothing.
They couldn't have erected an umbrella like I see out here over all of Titusville.
. . . And I saw the footprints of potential fall-outs which depended on
wind, speed and direction and height at which the explosion took place.
They call the RTG's indestructible; they're indestructible just like the
Titanic was unsinkable. And they are committing the lie, the sin of omission,
in not telling you the whole truth.
There should be public hearings. I don't see the Congress [or] NASA holding
public hearings....They figure if they keep it quiet, if they just pacify
everyone, they can get away with everything they want to do. . . . It is
time to put a stop to their freedom to threaten the lives of the people
here on the Earth . . . . They have no such right.....This is not a combat
situation. You are not soldiers. You cannot be put at risk . . . .
I have been in weapons systems analysis groups. I've done figures, too.
The figures are always phony, they're just pulled out of a series of formulas
which are nothing but presumptions. The Titan IV has blown up before. If
it blows up this time and it releases plutonium, it will be too late to
do anything about it....
I expect complete hearings, I expect testimony, and after that, I expect
them to cancel this launch until they can do it safely.
Bruce K. Gagnon,
State Coordinator of the Florida Coalition for Peace and Justice
NASA and the Pentagon are carrying a bad seed into space when the Cassini
space probe is launched with 72.3 pounds of plutonium on board. Between
now and 2009, NASA plans to launch many more plutonium missions, including
two nuclear reactors for mining colonies on Mars in 2007.
Just as Columbus sailed to discover a new world, NASA and the nuclear industry
view outer space as a new market. "Untold riches" await mining
colonies on the Moon, Mars, and various asteroids. The Pentagon plans to
send a space armada into the heavens much like Queen Isabella sent in the
Spanish Armada to protect the riches of the New World.
The industry publication "Space News" reported on May 5, 1997,
that in late May, an anti-satellite (ASAT) weapon was tested. "The
development of ASAT weapons is part of a larger U.S. effort to achieve space
control, the ability to guarantee U.S. forces access to American satellites
while denying the use of space to U.S. adversaries," the article stated.
The arms race is moving into space. A key technology necessary to accomplish
U.S. Space Command's goal to control space is nuclear power. Missions like
Cassini become icebreakers. They keep the nuclear laboratories in the United
States working at full speed. For example, Los Alamos, Savannah River, and
Oak Ridge all worked on the Cassini program. These nuclear-powered, deep-space
probe missions get Congress, the public, and the media accustomed to the
use of nuclear materials in space.
The recent hoopla over the Mars Pathfinder, which has grams of plutonium
on board the rover, is evidence that NASA is now doing mineral research
on Mars. The next Mars mission will map the surface of the planet (the Moon
has already been mapped), and then nuclear-powered mining colonies are planned
by NASA. Following the successful start-up of mining operations, NASA will
then turn the work over to private corporate interests that will benefit
without having had to pay for the research and development phase. The U.S.
taxpayers will have taken care of that. As more and more nuclear launches
are made from Cape Canaveral, the odds will dictate that eventually an accident
will occur. At the University of Florida, in Gainesville, the nuclear professors
are now working on nuclear powered rocket engines to lift Mars rockets from
the Cape's launch pad.
Notable Opponents of a Nuclear Cassini
Please feel free to contact any of the following for further information:
Dr. Helen Caldicott, founder of Physicians for Social Responsibility
Dr. Karl Z. Morgan, former head of health physics, Oak Ridge National Laboratory,
423-482-9814
Dr. Michio Kaku, 212-650-8448
Alan Kohn, former NASA emergency preparedness operations officer, 407-695-7015
Dr. Horst Poehler, former NASA scientist, 415-776-8299
Dr. Jan Kirsch, oncologist and expert on medical effects of plutonium, 510-548-2419
Bruce Gagnon, 352-468-3295
Karl Grossman, author of The Wrong Stuff, 516-725-2858
Dr. John Pike, director of space policy, Federation of American Scientists,
202-546-3300
Dr. John Gofman, co-founder of Uranium 233, worked on the Manhattan Project,
415-66~l933
Dr. Jeff Araj, head of Nuclear Medicine, Cape Canaveral Hospital, 407-868-7265
Kosta Tsipis, MIT physicist, 617-253-3647
Jim Wark, professor emeritus, USC, chemist, worked on Manhattan Project,
213-661-1535
WHAT YOU CAN DO
·Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space can provide
you with a list of actions you can take to stop the Cassini probe and other
dangerous space missions.
·The Network has copies of the award-winning video Nukes in Space for
$19.95. Show this in your community. To contact the Network, call or write
Bruce Gagnon, director of the Florida Coalition for Peace and Justice, at
P.O. Box 90035, Gainesville, FL 32607, (352) 468-3295/ fcpj@afn.org
·Visit our web site at www.afn.org/~fcpj/space
·Start a local chapter of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear
Power in Space to oppose the Cassini launch. We will send you materials.
·Invite Global Network spokespersons to speak in your community. Call
us at the above number.
·Write letters to the editor of your local paper about Cassini.
Organize a letter-writing campaign to President Clinton and Congress about
the plutonium on Cassini. President Clinton has final launch authority.
An international campaign is under way to put pressure on the President.
·Please join us at Cape Canaveral on October 4, 1997, for the international
demonstration at the gate.
SAY NO TO CASSINI
CALL 1-888-NO-CASSINI.
SEND 3 WESTERN UNION LETTERS TO STOP CASSINI
Please call 1-888-NO CASSINI and for only $9.95 (billed to your phone or
Visa/MC) have 3 hand-delivered verifiable letters sent in your name urging
each of the following-President William Jefferson Clinton, First Lady Hillary
Rodham Clinton and Vice President Albert A. Gore-to postpone the launch
of Cassini for the safety of a solar fuel cell redesign. End the militarization
and nuclearization of space.
Aug-Sept 97- - Archives
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