AUT: NoFlyby Alert.

[NoFlyby Action Site <noflyby@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Following is from an article in the Sunday Observer, posted at:

	http://www.gn.apc.org/cndyorks/yspace/articles/cfbobs.htm

NoFlyby encourages you to write a letter to the editor and keep this debate
in the media going. This article marks a breakthrough in the media's silence
of this needless and arrogant threat to life. Following the article is the
NoFlyby rebutal, which is a segment of "Why the Earth Flyby Must be
Omitted," a
report by Earl Budin, M/D., Assoc. Clinical Prof. of Radiology, UCLA Medical
Center.


>From the Observer , January 10, 1999:

Officials swing behind spaceship
By Robin McKie, Science Editor

It took six years and =A32 billion to construct, and involved hundreds of
scientists across America and Europe. But now activists want the six-tonne
Cassini probe, currently hurtling towards Earth en route to Satuirn be
redirected into the Sun.=20

They say the robot spaceship, which has a plutonium reactor on board, could
crash as it sweeps within 700 miles of Earth in August. "If control is lost
during the fly-by, the craft would plunge into the atmosphere and its
radioactive load could scatter widely," said Najmedin Meshkati, a professor
of engineering at the University of Southern Callfornia.=20

He and other campainers are pressing American and European politicians and
space officials to have Cassini directed away from Earth. Some believe it
should be divertedinto the Sun.=20

The prospect of one of the most advanced space probes ever built being
fried to a crisp has so alarmed the European Space Agency it has scheduled
emergency meetings for scientists, civil servants and government press
officers fromits 14 member states (including Britain) in Frascati next week.=
=20

For two days, they will take advice on how to defend the mission; to explain
the plutonium reactor and reassure the public it poses no danger.=20

"These probes have to carry plutonium reactors because Saturn is so far from
the Sun that solar panels could not provide enough power for its
instruments," said an ESA spokesman. "Cassini also has to fly close to Earth
because that is the only way we can build up enough speed to get to Saturn."=
=20

The US-built Cassini was launched in October 1997 and is scheduled to reach
Saturn in July 2004. It will release a European-built probe, called Huygens,
which will land on Titan, a methane-soaked moon which scientists believe is
like Earth four billion years ago.=20

To reach Saturn, the spaceship has to be flown through the solar system. It
has already whipped close to Venus a manoeuvre that gained valuable
momentum. In June it will fly past Venus again, passing Earth two months
later. Each fly-by increases speed until it achieves the 42,000 mph needed
to reach Saturn.=20

Previons probes have been sent on spirals across the solar system, flying
close to Earth, before heading to outer planets.=20

But Cassinl has attracted opposition, mainly becanse of the growing nower of
environmentalists, and partly because It carries the heaviest nuclear
reactor ever put on an interplanetary probe.=20

A fractional miscalculation during the Venus fly-by two months earlier could
send it plunging into our planet, it is claimed. And should 38kg of
plutoulum spill into the atmosphere, the effects would be calamitous, says
Joe Mclntire of the Stop Cassini Earth Fly-by. "A Cassini fly-by accident
could cause several. thousands of latent cancer fatalities," he said.=20

But NASA and European officials reject thls. "There is less than a one in a
million chance of an inadvertent reentry," said a NASA spokesman. And if an
accident did occur, Cassini's plutonium fuel is stored ina ceramic case that
would withstand atmospheric burn-up, say scientists. Cassini's launch was
nearly halted hy protesters who in 1997 tried, but failed, to stop it in
court. As the craft heads back to Earth, they are mounting a new campaign.=
=20

***********************************

The following is from a segment of "Why the Earth Flyby Must be Omitted," a
report by Earl Budin, M/D., Assoc. Clinical Prof. of Radiology, UCLA Medical
Center. The full text of his report is posted at

	http://www.nonviolence.org/noflyby/ref/budin1.htm


..NASA claims in various Environmental Impact Statements (EIS) that there is
only a one in a million chances that any problem might cause the space craft
to enter our atmosphere. This seems quite unrealistic for the complex
maneuvers of an EFB at 10 miles per second. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory in
its Cassini Earth Swingby Plan report of May 1997 lists 18 different kinds
of failures which might send the space craft out of control. The first
category is disruption when struck by an object in space; a new type of
asteroid, just discovered this year portends the possibility of others yet
undetected. The annual Perseid meteor shower is expected next August, the
month of the EFB. The second category includes electrical failures, such as
the short circuit which caused a Titan IV to explode on August 12. The third
category includes erroneous ground commands, an unavoidable human factor.
When the newly appointed head of NASA first learned of the Cassini Project
he was quoted as saying that it was so risky he would have canceled it.=20

NASA claims in their EISs that the Plutonium containers are quite secure and
that practically none of the Plutonium could become air-born in small
particles if atmospheric entry did occur, and at worst it would cause only
120 people to develop fatal lung cancer. However several important errors in
NASA's statements were revealed in a Safety Evaluation Report submitted in
July 1997 by the Interagency Nuclear Safety Review Panel (SER), a group of
five high level federal government officials including a NASA
representative. Most shocking was the revelation that the Plutonium
containers were not designed to withstand the heat of an atmospheric entry
at such a high speed and that 9 kilograms of Plutonium might be released in
tiny particles which could be inhaled.

In addition the SER notes that (since Plutonium emits alpha particles) a
single Plutonium atom can cause lung cancer. This fact is not considered in
any NASA EIS although it was determined in an experiment financed in part by
NASA (reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, April
1997, p.3765). The SER notes that a complete burn-up of the space craft
could cause several tens of thousands of fatal lung cancer, but fails to
indicate that a single kilogram of Plutonium contains 200 billion trillion*
[sic] Plutonium atoms and the number of fatal cancers could be very many
times higher! The SER conclusions ignored this special potency of Plutonium
and compare it to a cancer dose from ordinary radioactivity, which they then
average among a large population such that not a single cancer results.=20

The SER supports NASA's prediction that the chance of the space ship
entering our atmosphere is one in a million, yet recommended delaying the
Cassini launch for 60 days, which they note would have decreased the risk of
fatal cancers by a factor of 30 to 100 times since the speed of EFB would
have been considerably less.=20

The study of our Universe is a worthy project, but when it puts the entire
world at a significant health risk, such action should only be decided by
truly independent government representatives advised by independent
scientists from medical fields.=20

Dr. Earl Budin (wagingpeace@xxxxxxxx)=20


* From Avogadros's constant




     --- from list aut-op-sy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---