Subject: STOP CASSINI NEWSLETTER #47 - September 22nd
Hi!
This issue responds to a letter from Michael Gilbrook to SALON magazine reporter David Futrelle's list of Cassini questions. I had separately answered the same questions last week, which I will present in the online version of this newsletter, but size restrictions for my email editor will not permit it's inclusion here.
Sincerely, Russell D. Hoffman, Editor, STOP CASSINI NEWSLETTER
***** STOP CASSINI NEWSLETTER Volume #47, September 22nd, 1997 *****
Today's subject:
****** VOLUME #47 September 22nd, 1997 ******
By Russell D. Hoffman
Copyright (c) Russell D. Hoffman
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*** A response to Michael Gilbrook's letter to SALON magazine
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Hi!
The writer answering the Salon reporter's questions, Michael Gilbrook (whose comments are shown below), has misunderstood the powers of statistical inference. He cannot prove that weapons testing killed no one. The "spikes" he talks about would be virtually invisible EVEN IF millions had died -- what kind of detection equipment does he think the world possesses, anyway? We can barely even prove, statistically, that second-hand cigarette smoke is a killer, and yet somehow Mr. Gilbrook expects a far more subtle killer to produce some unmistakable statistical spike as it does it's dirty work?
How obvious does he want the proof to be? Here is a scientist who Mr. Gilbrook needs to familiarize himself with, followed be his very relevant statement:
~~~~Next portion of this email is from STOP CASSINI newsletters #24 and #25:
http://www.animatedsoftware.com/cassini/nltrs/nltr0025.htm
http://www.animatedsoftware.com/cassini/nltrs/nltr0024.htm
~~~~
Dr. Gofman was co-discoverer of Uranium 233, and also, that the first of the three patents in his name, on the slow and fast neutron fissionability of Uranium 233, was described by former AEC chairman Glenn Seaborg as being worth in the neighborhood of "a quadrillion dollars" to the nuclear power industry.
Gofman also developed (in 1943) the chemical techniques to deliver the first milligram-quantities of plutonium to J. Robert Oppenheimer. Prior to that all anyone had were microgram quantities, but "Oppy" needed milligrams, and he went to Gofman for it, who was a graduate student at Berkeley at the time. Gofman produced more than twice the amount Robert needed and was able to keep the rest to play with for himself. (Okay, Okay. It wouldn't be my choice of toy either.)
He is the Chairman of the Committee for Nuclear Responsibility, as well as Professor Emeritus in Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California at Berkeley. While at Livermore National Lab in 1963 he established the Biomedical Research Division where he examined the health effects of radiation and studied chromosomal origins of cancer. He has authored four books on the health consequences of ionizing radiation -- in 1981, '85, '91 and '94.
As presented in an affidavit Dr. Gofman provided in 1978 -- nearly 20 years ago -- for a court case where he was an expert witness, he had at that time had approximately 150 scientific papers published, in the following topics:
(1) Lipoproteins, atherosclerosis, and coronary heart disease.
(2) Ultracentrifugal discovery and analysis of the serum lipoproteins.
(3) Characterization of familial lipoprotein disorders.
(4) The determination of trace elements by X-ray spectrochemical analysis.
(5) The relationship of human chromosomes to cancer.
(6) The biological and medical effects of ionizing radiation, with particular reference to cancer,
leukemia, and genetic diseases.
(7) The lung-cancer hazard of plutonium.
(8) Problems associated with nuclear power production.
His honors and awards include the Gold-headed Cane Award as a graduating senior from UC Med. School in 1946, the Modern Medicine Award in 1954 for outstanding contributions to heart disease research, the Lyman Duff Lectureship Award of the American Heart Association in 1965 for research in atherosclerosis and coronary heart disease, the Stouffer Prize (shared) in 1972 for outstanding contributions to research in arteriosclerosis, and in 1974, the American College of Cardiology selection as one of 25 leading researchers in cardiology of the previous quarter century.
He also was Associate Director of Lawrence Livermore Laboratory from 1963 to 1969 and holds three patents. One is on the slow and fast neutron fissionability of Uranium-233, one is on the sodium uranyl acetate process for separation of plutonium from uranium and fission products from irradiated fuel, and one is on the columbium oxide process for the separation of plutonium from uranium and fission products from irradiated fuel.
What does Dr. Gofman say about numbers of deaths from SNAP-9A, Apollo 13, or the potential from Cassini, or the deaths from the atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons? Here is what he wrote about the weapons testing:
"I am prepared to defend, before any scientific body, and under oath in full public view, my estimate that ONE MILLION people (perhaps only 500,000 or as many as two million) in the Northern Hemisphere have been irreversibly condemned to die of lung cancer from those 5 tons of plutonium. Indeed, were it not for the fact that by far MOST of the plutonium fell either upon the oceans or uninhabitable land, the figure of one million would be enormously larger." ("Irrevy" by J.W. Gofman, 1979, page 39.)
Other comments are found interspersed within Mr. Gilbrook's response:
At 01:18 AM 9/19/97 Jim Spellman sent us this:
Date: 97-09-18 13:48:30 EDT
From: mj_gilbrook@compuserve.com (Michael Gilbrook)
To: WSpaceport@aol.com (Jim Spellman)
I got the following request from a (probably anti-Cassini) journalist this AM:
"I'm a writer for the online magazine Salon (www.salonmagazine.com) and am preparing a piece on the controversy surrounding the Cassini space probe.
Could I ask you a few questions about Cassini? My deadline is Thursday, so I'll need responses quickly. If you'd prefer to talk over the phone, please let me know when and where you can be reached. Thanks much!
See my response below:
-------------Forwarded Message-----------------
From: Michael Gilbrook,
To: David Futrelle, SALON Magazine
CC: Karen Rugg
Date: 9/18/97 7:45 AM
RE: Journalist's questions about Cassini
Message text written by David Futrelle:
>>>Michio Kaku estimates that a flyby accident could produce 200,000 cancer
>>>cases -- certainly a chilling enough figure. And other Cassini opponents
>>>talk of *millions* or even *billions* of casualties. Is Cassini really safe
>>>enough to fly? Are its possible benefits worth the risks?
Unlike the work done by NASA and DOE, Dr. Kaku's figures (and the supporting research, calculations or analysis behind them) have not been provided to third-party scientists for peer review. Dr. Kaku can claim any casualty figures he likes, but it is incumbent on him to demonstrate the validity of his claims in the same scientific forum in which NASA and DOE have operated. He hasn't done so. This places his claims in the same category as those who claim to have flown on alien spacecraft. Without benefit of more substantial evidence, repeating his claims without caveats seems irresponsible.
This would be true if it were Dr. Kaku was trying to do something dangerous and was attempting to prove why we should not worry about it. However, it is NASA who is attempting to do something dangerous, which simple logic refutes as well as Dr. Kaku's careful analysis of NASA's own documents. Substantial portions of NASA documentation is, indeed, available. Not all, and some of it is very hard to pry from them. Dr. Kaku based his statements on a careful reading of NASA's own obtuse logic.
The claims of millions or more casualties from a Cassini flyby accident are even more exaggerated, and even less well supported.
It's a role of the dice. That is our main objection. NASA cannot prevent many of the "worst case" scenarios and yet NASA will not produce a single health effects projection based on a true worst case scenario.
Although nobody likes the idea of plutonium in the environment,
If you don't like it, don't risk it. We are not talking about an oil change poured out onto the ground here. 72+ pounds of plutonium dioxide is a huge environmental assault.
the fact is that decades of above ground nuclear testing (halted by the US and USSR in the early 1960s, but continued by the French & Chinese) have already injected considerable amounts of it into the atmosphere. There's no way to tell if some cancers somewhere might have been initiated by a plutonium particle, but certainly we haven't seen *millions* or *billions* of extra lung cancer deaths!
See comments at the start of this email.
Likewise, the SNAP-9A RTG from a U.S. Navy navigation satellite -- Transit 5BN3 -- which burned up on re-entry in 1964, released all its plutonium, in accordance with the design philosophy at the time. No one has shown that there was a huge spike in millions of cancer deaths in the 10 - 20 years following this event, which was very much like what a worse-case Cassini fly-by re-entry release might be like.
See comments at the start of this email.
Examining cancer death statistics in developed countries might not be a good indicator, due to the confounding factors of other lung cancer causes we're subject to (e.g., smoking, industrial air pollution).
Good point. You obviously understand SOMETHING about confounding factors.
However, since plutonium released by the SNAP-9A re-entry would have been distributed globally, we should have seen massive increases in lung cancer among non-industrial, non-smoking people in remote areas all around the world, if the Cassini opponents are right about their claims.
No one has reported such.
That is an absurd "proof" that this stuff is safe. Hundreds of millions of people have died of cancer since the SNAP-9A re-entry.
As an example, a real annual cancer rate increase of just one ten thousandth of one percent -- if applied globally, would be 5,800 people a year around the world, or 58,000 in a decade. How can you expect to test such minute cancer rates? You cannot. But that does not mean prudence is not suggested. You have to use other methods and other logic to decide what to do. As Dr. Gofman is willing to testify, low level plutonium contamination appears to be a serious hazard, and no one has proven otherwise.
The evidence of plutonium's hazards led Dr. Otto Raabe, President of the Health Physics Society, in USA TODAY on September 19th, 1997 to say: "To pose a significant risk to people, plutonium must be deposited within the human body through inhalation as finely divided, airborne particles."
Yes, yes, everyone knows Dr. Raabe is pro-nuclear Cassini. But the truth of this statement is certainly not being questioned. Ask him what size plutonium 238 particle deposited on the lung is likely to kill (greater than 50% death rate in 20 years, for example.) You will find it is a very small particle, probably in the range of 5 to 30 micrograms, perhaps (if he remembers we are talking about Pu 238, not Pu 239) he will an even suggest a far smaller value...
Cassini will have about 27,000 grams of Pu.
If the particles are deposited far and wide, it will be very hard if not impossible to identify the victims.
As to whether Cassini and other missions using RTGs to explore the solar system are worth the risks, I think the answer is a resounding "Yes!" The risks are extremely small.
The risk is small but the size of the catastrophe is large. These are what we balance in life but before attempting to balance the facts, one has to accept them ALL, not a selected few, and one has to accept the uncertainties as well.
Any accident other than the worst-case flyby re-entry would involve at most the breakup of a plutonium dioxide pellet in a small area after striking a hard surface on the ground (a pretty unlikely event in itself, given how little of the Earth's surface is rock, steel or concrete).
I wouldn't want to be there when it happened. Also the writer has forgotten about a "Full Stack Intact Impact" scenario (FSII). Rocket goes up, looses gyro control, and comes back down under full acceleration because the destruct mechanism didn't work, the range officer didn't hit the destruct button, or the button he hit didn't work (banged it too hard under extreme emotion, perhaps?).
Yeah, it might not hit rock. The RTG's might just hit the superstructure of the rocket itself, which they will be surrounded by. Self-contained rock surface,courtesy NASA.
The knowledge we'll gain about the history of the solar system's formation is critical to our understanding of how the universe works.
Not worth risking killing so many people over -- and looking stupid. If Cassini has an accident America will look even more arrogant and stupid than we will for launching it in the first place.
More pragrmatically, exploring other worlds allows us to do "comparative planetology." If we can understand and model the extreme conditions found on other planets, we learn more about how to understand our own. Any field of science requires the use of "control" and "treatment" groups to examine changes in a system result in significant change.
This would make sense if we had about 1% of the knowledge of our own world which we should have. I'd like to know why Biosphere II failed? Why don't we have a permanent colony on the moon yet? Why? Perhaps it's simply because we don't understand enough about what makes our planet work so well at all! We don't know why the frogs are dying, we don't know about life in the Tonga trench, now thought to be rich with life despite NASA thinking it was a plutonium dumping ground for Apollo 13. We don't know much at all.
Sure, a "control planet" would be nice. But if you hadn't noticed, the other planets are not very good "control planets". They are rather different from ours, but if you're policies continue, that might not be true for long...
For example, medical trials give drugs to one group and placebos to another.
Unfortunately, we don't have another Earth we can use to measure the effects of more or less carbon dioxide, faster or slower rotation, etc.
We also don't have another one to go to when this one is too polluted to support human life. And we never will. We will always need a clean Earth, more than we will ever need to know ANYTHING about Saturn. Which is not to say I'm against learning about Saturn. But do it properly and safely!
But we can look to other planets to see how their much different atmospheres, rotation rates, and so on result in conditions different from the Earth. Global dust storms on Mars warned us of the potential of nuclear winter. Conditions on Venus taught us the peril of a runaway greenhouse effect induced by massive carbon dioxide buildup in the atmoshpere. We'll undoubtedly learn many new things looking at Saturn and its moons.
Wow! Well, I personally would rather see a dozen Lewis Earth Observation Satellites fail before we get one working, than risk the plutonium on a look at Saturn. This is the planet of greatest interest.
Finally, the ultimate value of probes like Cassini is as an intial reconaissance of the solar system. They act as robotic Lewis & Clarks, letting us know what's out there. The future of humanity will depend on our ability to use the material wealth of space for the benefit of people here on Earth.
Crap. The future of humanity will depend on whether we can develop a sustainable environment at home. Your apparent ignorance of that need is appalling.
>>>Kaku has called the NASA safety analyses "pure guesswork masquerading as
>>>physics." How do you respond to these charges?
NASA's work has been peer-reviewed by many experts and not found wanting.
NASA's work has been slammed by many experts and even EPA found it wanting. They described the June 1995 EIS and the June 1997 EIS both as "EC-2 (environmental concerns, insufficient information." Why? For one reason, because as stated above, NASA won't release studies of what happens if the pellets really hit the fan.
Dr. Kaku's work hasn't been subjected to that scrutiny. I submit that it is Dr. Kaku's analyses which may be masquerading as physics.
Dr. Kaku has risked his reputation on his work. Are you willing to do so too?
The members of the National Space Society are largely *not* aerospace industry workers. In fact, only a very small percentage of our members identify themselves as working in the space field (check with Karen Rugg for statistics from a membership survey). As such, most are not in a position to debate esoteric phenomena like the overpressure and temperature environment associated with a Titan IV launch accident.
They can learn. They can read the opposition views. They can think for themselves and speak what's on their mind. Can't they?
What they *do* know is that NASA and DOE have done a credible job of evaluating the risks and minimizing them through spacecraft design and operations.
How do they know this? The discrepancies in NASA documentation, the unknowns, and NASA's own past history of failures and inaccurate predictions of risks seem to all have been forgotten by the pro-nuclear Cassini leaders and NASA PR people. Why should the trusting members of NSS think any different?
That's why we in the opposition try to reach out to the leaders, to get them to look realistically as everything NASA says, so they will present an honest position to their members.
What they *do* know is that the critics of Cassini use inflated accident scenario statistics which don't have any basis in fact.
Illustrate with names, dates, and statements, please.
The stock answers of "That's not true" or "Cassini is safe" allow our members to demonstrate their support of Cassini, and our confidence in the rigor of the RTG safety analysis and design program.
Sheep.
Journalists needing further explication need to look to original sources closer to the analysis for more technical responses.
I've been sent plenty of documentation from NASA and from the pro- and anti- Cassini people. NASA Cassini documentation (which many have told me is getting hard to get) tells a chilling story all it's own for people willing to read it. Much of it has been posted at our STOP CASSINI web site.
I hope you find this material helpful. Please write again if you have more questions for future articles.
Michael Gilbrook
President, Metro Orlando Space Society
Bold and Italicized comments (in this version) written 9/22/97 by:
Russell D. Hoffman
Editor
STOP CASSINI newsletter
Webmaster
STOP CASSINI web site
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*** Russell Hoffman's email to David Futelle, Salon Magazine (added to online version of this newsletter)
**************************************
Hi!
Thanks for your email.
[...snip past pleasantries...]
You wrote:
Questions:
Michio Kaku has called the NASA safety analyses "pure guesswork masquerading as physics." What's the problem with them?
NASA numbers are made up out of thin air. One example is the odds of a space shuttle accident, which were pegged by NASA at one in 100,000 before Challenger blew up, and then moved to 1 in 76 after, and now are 1 in 500.
Another is the amount of plutonium NASA says is expected to be released at high altitude in the event of a flyby reentry accident. In June 1995 NASA said they expected 1/3rd of the payload to be released. In June 1997 NASA changed it to about 3%. Yet NASA claims that the RTG technology is a very stable and well studied technology, with (depending on which report you follow, and even which page of which report) 12 years, 25 years, or even 37 years of research into it. That is, indeed, one of their favorite reasons for explaining why they would hate to change to another technology -- they're so comfortable with RTGs.
I'm not so comfortable with RTGs...
One of Kaku's articles is available at this URL:
http://www.animatedsoftware.com/cassini/mk9708so.htm
It's called A Scientific Critique of the Accident Risks from the Cassini Space Mission.
Are you more concerned about the risks at launch or the risks during the later flyby?
The flyby, by far. The likelihood of an accident is far, far greater for the launch but the potential severity of an accident is (probably) far greater for the flyby. Both phases have some potential for disaster, I'm sure.
Are the estimates advanced by many Cassini opponents any more scientifically sound than NASA's? Kaku's estimates suggest that a flyby accident could produce 200,000 cancer cases -- certainly a chilling enough figure.
I do not believe they are MUCH more scientifically sound than NASA's numbers, but then, I think the anti-nuclear Cassini scientist's are much more willing to admit that they, too, must "cook" (as Kaku puts it) such numbers.
Personally, I don't like hearing them make these sorts of estimates, and frankly I think most anti-nuclear Cassini scientists are also reluctant to "play the numbers game" but keep getting pushed into it anyway. (I admit to having asked many of them for numbers at one time as well.)
According to Dr. John W. Gofman, the actual amount of RESEARCH into the actual hazards of plutonium that has been done, is minimal at best, and totally inadequate to the reliance we have put, as a society, upon that research. That is to say, if the pro-nuclear opinions are wrong, we have had and are having an ecological disaster because of radiation pollution, and Dr. Gofman is convinced that the pro-nuclear opinions are based on a paucity of actual research, and I am convinced Dr. Gofman knows what he is talking about.
Here is a web page with a newsletter (#24) that has more information on Dr. Gofman:
http://www.animatedsoftware.com/cassini/nltrs/nltr0024.htm
Also see the next newsletter, #25:
http://www.animatedsoftware.com/cassini/nltrs/nltr0025.htm
But other Cassini opponents talk of *millions* or even "billions* of casualties. Helen Caldicott says the mission "threatens the health of millions of people" and that even one pound of plutonium "could induce lung cancer in every person on the planet." Ernest Sternglass suggests the death toll could be as high as 30 to 40 million. Alan Kohn suggests we'll need to provide "permanent fallout shelters for all living beings on the planet."
What sort of assumptions are these statements based upon?
This is the problem with estimates, I guess! If I were to critique each of these statements I would probably be hung by the rest of the anti-nuclear Cassini army (and I'm precious close to that now as it is!)
Suffice it to say that there are many different ways to measure plutonium's hazards. But one thing is certain, which is that extremely small particles are deadly. A lethal dose of Plutonium 238 is in the neighborhood of micrograms of plutonium. Here is an article by Dr. Horst Poehler, which I think is the best one I've found by a credible scientist which discusses Cassini's potential health effects. It's called Cassini Cancers:
http://www.animatedsoftware.com/cassini/hp9708ps.htm
His credentials are discussed in newsletter #39:
http://www.animatedsoftware.com/cassini/nltrs/nltr0039.htm
How would you respond to critics who suggest such "doomsday" rhetoric could undermine the credibility of anti-Cassini activists?
I agree that the more extreme numbers might be incorrect but I frankly have no way of knowing. I'm sorry, I don't know what else I could say! One must realize however, that only providence, chance, or what you might call dumb luck can ultimately "save us" from a true worst-case scenario with a total incineration of the plutonium over a major population center. There is space debris that the probe could collide with, as suddenly everyone knows today (see front page of many papers for story about MIR) and there are other accident scenarios which can result in a very significant release as well.
I have heard NASA compare the risk of a Cassini accident to the level of risk the Earth suffers from a hit by a very large asteriod -- 1/2 a mile wide or larger, or something like that (I forget the exact analogy). But there is a big, big difference in the one risk versus the other risk: One we have control over, and one we do not! Just because we are subjected by natural forces to a particular level of risk does not me we should subject ourselves to other equally risky things! Sure, nobody gets out alive. But we each should be allowed to try to survive as long as possible and as healthy as possible. Cassini represents a potential assault on all our health.
Besides the people mentioned, the true "doomsday" voices that object to Cassini are saying things like "we could all die" and at first I did not believe anyone believed that and did not think anyone was actually saying it, but it does occasionally get said.
Unfortunately, there is some logic to what they are saying. I will try to explain, but realize that this is, of course, just a theory...
If you were to "push" all of the EPA limits that they have set on some 65,000 different chemicals and compounds and so on, you would be living in a toxic world. I doubt there is a person alive who believes that if EVERY EPA limit was touched, we as a species could survive.
The point is that there is some threshold above which we would be in a toxic environment in which we could not live. How close are we to that threshold? Perhaps when we know more about human physiology we will be better able to know the exact threshold of human survival, and as long as we are below that threshold, someone will be there to argue that a little more pollution won't hurt.
But in reality, with each step closer to that limit for the general population, there are those among us who are more fragile and more delicate and cannot survive nearly as much of an assault.. The weak, the old, the young, the ones with busted immune systems -- they cannot survive, while the majority of humans go right on thinking nothing is wrong, but something IS wrong!
So when is it alright to pollute? At the very least it is ONLY alright to pollute when there is "no other alternative (to progress)".
In the case of Cassini, however, NASA's claims that a solar alternative is absolutely unworkable are hollow. For a complete discussion of that, please see section 2-12(e) of a document I submitted to NASA. Here's the URL of the document:
http://www.animatedsoftware.com/cassini/dsei9707.htm
Section 2-12(e) discusses "NASA lies" including the way NASA "proves" that solar is not an option.
If the Cassini mission is so dangerous, why does NASA want to go ahead with it?
Good question. The consensus among anti-nuclear Cassini people is that NASA has been heavily pushed towards the RTG solution by DOE who constantly try to find new uses for all their millions of pounds of radioactive crud.
DOE controls and owns the plutonium NASA uses.
The military is another group which would desperately like to see us allow nuclear payloads, but they are thinking big reactors in space instead of "small" plutonium powerpacks. The reason they want these things is simple: Power. You need power to run a battle station, whether it fires laser beams or bullets or whatever. The military wishes to control humanity from space, so that no one, anywhere, will be able to mount an aggressive action against anyone else unless it is approved by the military command headquarters, or at least, tacitly allowed to occur.
Do we want this sort of absentee-control system available around the world? Should any human or small group of humans really be allowed to fight a war where they are absolutely and utterly not at risk while their enemy is absolutely and utterly without even the shelter of his own homeland?
Can society possibly allow such terror from the skies? Sure, it sounds fine if the government in control of the equipment is a benevolent government, a good government which never harms the wrong party, and only attacks and destroys bad people.
But what if some other government came to power? What if the national mindset of the country became less than benevolent, as has happened throughout history in other countries populated by humans just as we are?
Even in this great country there are those who would annihilate whole races of fellow citizens. We all know this is true! Yet from this great nation of imperfect souls (me being first among many when it comes to imperfections) we want to pick a small circle of militants who will control the rest of the world from space or from ground-based space weaponry.
This is a recipe for terror the likes of which the world has never seen.
NASA has a dozen future nuclear missions planned. The Military agenda is unknown...
For a good web page on potential government abuses of power, please read an interview I did a few years ago with Phil Zimmermann, the inventor of PGP, an encryption program. Here's the URL:
http://www.animatedsoftware.com/hightech/philspgp.htm
The interview has also been transcribed to Spanish.
Thank you again for writing and for being concerned about Cassini.
Sincerely,
Russell Hoffman
Editor
STOP CASSINI newsletter
Webmaster
STOP CASSINI web site
http://www.animatedsoftware.com/cassini/index.htm
[... a postscript requesting permission to reprint his email has been snipped...]
I'm a writer for the online magazine Salon (www.salonmagazine.com) and am preparing a piece on the controversy surrounding the Cassini space probe.Your page has been a very useful source of material.
Could I ask you a few questions about Cassini? My deadline is Thursday afternoon, so I'll need responses quickly. If you'd prefer to talk over the phone, please let me know when and where you can be reached. Thanks much!
Questions:
Michio Kaku has called the NASA safety analyses "pure guesswork masquerading as physics." What's the problem with them?
Are you more concerned about the risks at launch or the risks during the later flyby?
Are the estimates advanced by many Cassini opponents any more scientifically sound than NASA's? Kaku's estimates suggest that a flyby accident could produce 200,000 cancer cases -- certainly a chilling enough figure.
But other Cassini opponents talk of *millions* or even "billions* of casualties. Helen Caldicott says the mission "threatens the health of millions of people" and that even one pound of plutonium "could induce lung cancer in every person on the planet." Ernest Sternglass suggests the death toll could be as high as 30 to 40 million. Alan Kohn suggests we'll need to provide "permanent fallout shelters for all living beings on the planet."
What sort of assumptions are these statements based upon?
How would you respond to critics who suggest such "doomsday" rhetoric could undermine the credibility of anti-Cassini activists?
If the Cassini mission is so dangerous, why does NASA want to go ahead with it?
Thanks again for your help,
David Futrelle
davidFUTRELLE + futrelle@ais.net
http://www.well.com/user/futrelle
http://www.salon1999.com/media/mediacircus.html
Please feel free to post these newsletters anywhere you feel it's appropriate! THANKS!!!
Welcome new subscribers!
Thanks for reading,
Sincerely,
Russell D. Hoffman
STOP CASSINI webmaster.
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