Word: saturns
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Legendary guitarist Jimi Hendrix released only four albums in his short lifetime, yet far more now bear his name. South Saturn Delta is the most recent in a line of recordings assembling previously unreleased or difficult-to-find material from the influential musician. The tracks on Delta are all studio recordings, but they have little else in common--B-sides, alternate versions and early demos complete...
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...
...October 1997--about a month from now--and a Titan IV rocket has just lifted off the pad at Cape Canaveral. Perched on top is the Cassini spacecraft, one of the most ambitious probes NASA has ever launched. If the mission goes as planned, Cassini will reach Saturn in 2004 and spend the next four years exploring the giant ringed planet and most of its 18 icy moons...
...case about 72 lbs. of plutonium 238. If the spacecraft were destroyed, insist these critics, some of the plutonium could be pulverized and wafted away by the wind. Even worse, Cassini is supposed to swing by Earth in 1999 for a gravity assist that would sling it out toward Saturn. If the probe comes too close, it could re-enter the atmosphere at 42,000 m.p.h. and vaporize, releasing enough plutonium to be inhaled by millions of people. The radiation from P-238 is harmless under most conditions, but breathing in particles of it can be deadly. It is, says...
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...