Word: cassini
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...plutonium-loaded Cassini probe, which blasts off Monday, safe? (TIME Daily...
WASHINGTON: Is the Cassini probe, which heads for Saturn Monday, nothing more than a space-bound H-bomb? Despite the spaceship being laden with 72 pounds of highly toxic plutonium, the chances of a nuclear nightmare are actually quite remote. TIME science correspondent Jeffery Kluger reports that "Cassini's opponents have shown an extreme excess of caution. Dozens of spacecraft have flown with nuclear power sources, and so far, there have been no accidents...
...What makes an atomic disaster so unlikely? Heat-resistant ceramic jackets around each plutonium pellet, which can easily withstand the temperature of reentry and the force of an explosion. If the system does fail, Cassini's opponents warn, trace amounts of plutonium could be inhaled and cause cancers of the lung, bone and liver. NASA's response: the average exposure would equal about 2 millirems over 50 years, a dose so mild that it makes standing next to your microwave look dangerous...
...danger is so great, say the critics, that Cassini must be stopped. Last week the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom ran newspaper ads calling Cassini a "nuclear experiment in space" and claiming that NASA has failed to consider safer power sources like solar cells. The group is planning rallies at the U.N., at the White House and, on Oct. 4, at Cape Canaveral in an effort to get Cassini canceled...
NASA is not amused. Snaps Wesley Huntress, the agency's chief of space science: "NASA believes this mission is safe, period. Otherwise we would not be doing it." Contrary to what the critics say, the agency did consider solar power, insists Cassini engineer Richard Stoller. Because sunlight at Saturn is only 1% as strong as it is on Earth, solar cells would not have done the trick. Neither would batteries and fuel cells; they would never last through the 11-year mission...