Ashley Baker
If Galileo were alive today, and working for NASA, he might think that not much has changed.
About a week from now a Titan IV rocket will be lifting off into space with a small probe named Cassini perched atop. If the mission goes as planned, Cassini will reach Saturn in 2004 and spend the next four years exploring our solar system's most intriguing planet and most of its 18 moons.
Like all the deep-space probes that have gone before it, Cassini is powered by radioactive isotopes, in this case about 72 lbs. of Plutonium 238. If something went wrong and the probe had to be destroyed, antinuclear activist are worried that the probe would shower the earth with radioactive plutonium.
Cassini is supposed to swing by Earth in 1999 for a gravity assist. If it comes too close, it could re-enter the atmosphere at 42,000 miles per hour, disintegrate, and release its plutonium cargo into the atmosphere.
Last week the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom ran newspaper ads calling Cassini a 'Nuclear experiment in space.' The group is also planning rallies at the U.N., the White House, and, on Oct. 4, at Cape Canaveral in an effort to get Cassini canceled.
However, their fears seem a bit exaggerated. The plutonium is encased in small marshmallow-sized pellets. Each pellet is wrapped in iridium, a metal that's hard enough to withstand enormous shocks and remain intact. Iridium melts at 4450 degrees Fahrenheit. The pellets are then encased in a graphite-fiber shell.
The League accused NASA of not looking for alternative sources of power. Because sunlight at Saturn is only 1 percent as strong as it is on earth, solar cells would not work. How about batteries? They would never last the length of the 11 year mission.
For the Plutonium to actually be harmful, the natural decay process would have to be greatly accelerated.
'This is not a nuclear experiment in space. They have been sending satellites with nuclear power plants into space for a long time. NASA has looked at all the alternatives. NASA has other satellites with solar panels, so they obviously have looked at other options,' said Nolan Mangelson, associate dean of The College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences.
What's to lose if Cassini never makes it off the launching pad? A chance to learn more about our universe and, by implication, our place in it.
Baker is a senior from Orem majoring in
journalism