NASA's nuclear gamble - October 1997 launch of a Cassini space probe which will carry 732.3 lbs of potentially dangerous plutonium: includes information on anti-launch activities - Cover Story

Progressive, The, Sept, 1997 by Karl Grossman

In 1995, European Space Agency physicist Carla Signorini told the newspaper Florida Today: "It given the money to do the work, within five years the European Space Agency could have solar cells ready to power a space mission to Saturn."

In March of this year, Gerhard Strobl of Deutsch Aerospace -- the company that led the European Space Agency contractors in the solar-cell project -- said his firm could provide a solar system for a redesigned Cassini probe. He noted that his firm was building a solar-powered drive to power the European Space Agency's Rosetta space probe, which the agency plans to launch to "go beyond the orbit of Jupiter" and rendezvous with a comet. The solar cells on Rosetta will be producing 500 watts of electricity. Said Strobl: "We solved the basic problem of high-efficiency solar cells for space."

Still, NASA insists on sticking with plutonium power -- and the chance of colossal harm -- on the Cassini mission. Why?

There are corporate and governmental pressures. The General Electric Company, for decades the manufacturer of the plutonium-fueled radioisotope thermoelectric generators, pushed for their use. In recent times, GE's aerospace division became part of Lockheed Martin, which has continued lobbying where GE left off. In 1995 a subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee zeroed out the Cassini mission based on its high cost, which NASA now estimates at $3.4 billion, the most expensive single space project to date. However, in following days, "lobbyists from Lockheed and NASA were all over us," said an aide to the House Appropriations Committee. The subcommittee's Cassini cut was restored.

The U.S. Department of Energy's national nuclear laboratories -- such as Oak Ridge, Los Alamos, and Brookhaven -- have also been pressuring for more use of nuclear power in space. And the Department of Energy itself wants to pursue its mission of promoting atomic technology.

There is also a military connection. U.S. military strategy now refers to space as the "ultimate high ground."

"Yesterday's high ground of remote ridge fines and distant hilltops has a modern corollary: space. Our technologies are the ladders that enable military commanders, now and in the future, to reach that ultimate high ground," said Colonel Mike Heil of the Air Force's Phillips Laboratory. A current Phillips brochure describes the mission of one of its facilities as "supporting the war fighter" and "helping control space for the U.S."

General Joseph W. Ashy, commander-in-chief of the US. Space Command until he retired last September, told Aviation Week & Space Technology in 1996 that the U.S. Air Force intends to "expand into" space. "We will engage terrestrial targets someday -- ships, airplanes, land targets -- from space," the general said. "We will engage targets in space, from space. . . . It's politically sensitive, but it's going to happen. Some people don't want to hear this, and it sure isn't in vogue . . . but -- absolutely -- we're going to fight in space. We're going to fight from space, and we're going to fight into space."