Copyright (c) 1998

Subject: STOP CASSINI NEWSLETTER #75 - October 5th, 1998

Hi!

This, the 75th issue of the STOP CASSINI newsletter, is devoted to Louis Friedman. A few months ago he blasted off the following email to me:

Sincerely, Russell D. Hoffman

FROM LOUIS FRIEDMAN

Date: Fri, 15 May 1998 06:39:20 -0700
To: "Russell D. Hoffman" (rhoffman@animatedsoftware.com)
From: Louis Friedman ( tps.ldf@mars.planetary.org)
Subject: Re: STOP CASSINI NEWSLETTER #66 May 14th, 1998 "inaccurate information about Cassini" being "widely disseminated"

Russell:

Your linking India's madness with Cassini stretches all credibility, and does a disservice to many many people who have done much more than you to reduce nuclear weapons arsenals, danger of nuclear explosions, and fear and hostility in the world, while at the same time carefully supporting space exploration.

You have a wide polemic paintbrush.

Louis Friedman

END OF EMAIL FROM LOUIS FRIEDMAN

Certainly, he will not accuse me of a wide target today. Today, his heart is my sole target.

COPY OF TODAY'S EMAIL REGARDING LF

To: Jonathan Haber, NOFLYBY web site
From: Russell D. Hoffman
Re: Friedman's comments to Rendahl
cc: Rendahl, Friedman, others
Date: 10/5/98

Hi!

Regarding [the NOFLYBY] feedback issue #3 [shown below], thanks for publishing Friedman and Rendahl's exchange. Louis Friedman is the one who should have resigned from The Planetary Society, not Mr. Rendahl.

Friedman's answers are the non-answers of a closed-minded PR guy who is a shill for the nuclear space industry. He is not considering Mr. Rendahl's statements, he is merely responding with standard nuclear industry pablum. There is no truth in what he says.

Take for example his first answer, comparing the vaporization of plutonium to "any industrial accident". He appears to be making the assumption that the canisters, upon hitting the pavement, will not at the same time be engulfed in the surrounding continued explosion of the Titan. For example, one launch accident scenario involves two failures, the first one, where the missile loses guidance control (as actually happened with the Titan IVA that blew up last August --watch the video, Mr Friedman, anyone can see it), the second one, where the self-destruct mechanism (or the guy with his finger on the button) fails for any reason (heart attack, power failure in the missile, communication failure of the signal to self-destruct, etc. etc.). In that scenario the rocket pile-drives itself into the ground under full power, while still virtually intact. The entire rocket plops down upon the Cassini probe, and so you end up with lots of loose canisters cracking open, being hit by the rest of the rocket as well as hitting the ground under power, and at the same time surrounded by intense heat, shock waves, the whole nine yards. Such an accident at the time of launch could have resulted in the spread of enormous quantities of plutonium in vaporized form over "only" (Friedman's word) a "local" area of perhaps many square miles (for example, 5 miles on a side is 25 square miles of contamination, numbers well within any reasonable estimate of the plume damage from a full-blown blowup. That could be all of Disneyworld or most of Miami.). Then the stuff will continue to spread throughout the biosphere, but Mr. Friedman will tell you it is not a hazard, since he believes (despite all the evidence to the contrary, and certainly despite the fact that he has no proof) that dilution is the solution to pollution. It is a common industrial mistake to think that way, and has been for centuries. Real scientists know better, and any thinking person who regards Earth as "spaceship Earth" as R. Buckminster Fuller put it, knows that dilution of something that can kill at the atomic level in an environment filled with 6 billion souls (and that's just the humans on board) is not much of a solution. Plutonium, a manmade hazard, should NOT be dispersed into the environment! NASA did this in 1964 on purpose, of course, when they lost the SNAP-9A with 2+ pounds of plutonium 238, which was vaporized into the upper atmosphere. Friedman considers that a non-accident, of course, and will not read about how plutonium kills that he might learn any different.

The tests he claims prove the safety of the plutonium containment system consisted in all cases for which I can find documentation, of only one or two samples, and only one accident scenario at a time -- for example, they throw the stuff against a solid surface OR they subject it to flame -- but not both at the same time. The tests were totally inadequate as is Mr. Friedman's knowledge.

Cassini carries about 270,000,000,000 (270 billion) potentially lethal doses of plutonium. Few industrial accidents contain that much potential for anything. Sure, it's just like an industrial accident. Just like 100,000 Love Canals all at once. Actually, the plutonium that could be released (in terms of Curies, a very reasonable measure) is just like about 1000 atmospheric bomb tests all at once all in one place. Sure it's just like an industrial accident -- only worse. It would be the mother of all industrial accidents and make Bhopal look like a walk in the park.

Next he refers to the "precisely calculated" accident ratio of the flyby as "one million to one" and refers to this as being calculated from "orbital mechanics" and not an "engineering guess". This is wrong on two counts. First of all, it IS an "engineering guess". There have not been "hundreds" of flybys, my understanding is that it is "dozens" and anyway, no one questions that the calculations can be performed and checked and rechecked for the maneuver. What is questioned is whether the command sequence can be properly entered into the computers, properly transmitted, and properly executed by the spacecraft. No valves stick, no parts fail, no miscalculations, no transmission failures -- nothing goes wrong. So there's that. Second, the estimate of the likelihood of an Earth impact during the flyby most certainly DOES include "engineering guesses" about the possibility of loose nuts in the spacecraft or in the control center, and 1000s of other engineering failures that might occur along the way. It is a guess made of thousands of smaller guesses. It has relatively little to do with merely being able to calculate to a usable degree of accuracy the "orbital mechanics" of the flyby maneuver. And how accurately can NASA make such guesses, historically? NASA told Dr. Karl Z. Morgan that the chance of a SNAP-9A failure was "one in ten million" yet it failed. They said the chance of a shuttle accident was one in one hundred thousand before Challenger exploded, yet it happened. NASA simply does not have the flight history to back up it's one in one million claim and in fact, if they would properly use the data from their own historic failure rate, they would undoubtedly see that their "calculations" are really just "wild guesses" (known in the biz as "WAG").

I would next like to see what Mr. Friedman provides as proof that the military is not trying to get the public used to plutonium and other nuclear launches via these supposedly vital planetary exploration missions, so that they can have a free hand in their own nuclear launches later. Karl Grossman has documented a strong case for the other side in his book THE WRONG STUFF which I'm sure Mr. Friedman has not and will not read. And can Friedman provide any proof whatsoever that the afore-mentioned Titan IVA did NOT have a nuclear power source on board for the spy mission? No, of course he cannot, and all we got out of the Air Force on the subject was "plausible deniability" -- the spokesperson said "not that I know of" when asked if a nuclear power source was on board that rocket. That is NOT a "no". And it doesn't explain the extreme amount of sub activity which has been reported to have occurred off the KSC coast after the launch. It doesn't explain the early reports which some people heard on CNN saying that there WAS an RTG of some sort on board. And it doesn't explain the rather obvious fact that if "they" aren't worried about nukes, it would be ludicrous NOT to use them for that mission! (And clearly they aren't, for if it's worth using them for a routine planetary mission, surely they would feel that national defense reasons make it even MORE worthwhile and JUSTIFIABLE). Friedman should not act like his hollow assurances to the contrary are worth spit. They aren't.

Lastly, his claims that a solar panel "the size of a football field" would be necessary for Cassini is preposterous on two counts -- first, because solar cell technology is improving on practically a daily basis -- if a football field-sized array is needed today, by next decade a tennis-court sized array would be adequate, and what's the rush? -- and second because even at that size, there is no reason to think that the mission could not be flown, perhaps with some modification, but so what? That same aforementioned Titan IVA that exploded actually carried a football-field sized antenna which was for spying on very specific areas on Earth. Maneuvering such a large panel is something NASA and the military are well familiar with and so what's the problem? Besides, even if you had to cut some of the most energy-intensive experiments so the panels could be smaller, that would be okay if it meant flying without the nuclear option -- I'd rather support 100 non-nuclear launches than one more like Cassini. Why Friedman cannot think like that is beyond me, but I suspect it's has to do with his TRW space war machine background (which he now implies he opposes) and his hidden agendas for the continued civilian nuclearization of space.

Mr. Friedman either doesn't look at the facts (he's been documented to use that technique, as in his unwillingness to read what Dr. John Gofman has written about plutonium health hazards), or lies, knowing full well that the facts are against him. I don't know which it is. I like to give his soul some credit, and think he's merely uninformed, but then he should remove himself from power if he's got any decency in him, if he isn't willing to bone up on the facts. He should not speak out so favorably about something he refuses to learn all the facts on. And his continued charge that the anti-Cassini movement is a bunch of knee-jerk know-nothing reactionaries is just his attempt to marginalize them and to deny the many good scientists who oppose Cassini their due.

Sincerely,

Russell D. Hoffman
pro-space environmental activist
www.animatedsoftware.com

END OF EMAIL TO LF, etc

ATTACHMENT: NOFLYBY FEEDBACK ISSUE #3

From: noflyby@nonviolence.org
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1998 11:31:27 -0400 (EDT)
X-Sender: micropho@equinox.shaysnet.com
To: noflyby@nonviolence.org
Subject: NoFlyby Feedback No. 3

At 07:46 PM 10/1/98 -0700, you wrote:
Dear Jonathan M. Haber & Joe McIntire,

I thought you might like to see my email to Louis Friedman of The Planetary Society & his response back to me. We exchanged emails before the Cassini launch also. He is pro Cassini, that's when I quit The Planetary Society. This time I sent him some excerpts from your web site.

rar

Subject: Re: Cassini
Date: Mon, 21 Sep 1998 05:42:35 -0700
From: Louis Friedman
To: Roy Rendahl

Mr. Rendahl

Thank you for your thoughtful note. Please let me reply -- because I think this is an important issue that deserves careful consideration, and because I respect your view and interests, especially as a former Society member. I appreciate the references you have given me, and have looked at them.

My comments are IN CAPS in the text of your message.

Best wishes,
Louis Friedman

At 11:45 PM 9/18/1998 -0700, Roy Rendahl wrote:

-----

Dear Mr. Friedman,

I am a former member of The Planetary Society. (I quit because of the nuclear Cassini.)

It was lucky that Cassini with it's 72.3 pounds (32.8 kg) of plutonium dioxide wasn't in the August 12, 1998 explosion on launch of a Titan 4 rocket! (The same type of rocket that did launch Cassini.) Although, since this was a military spy satellite, we don't really know what was in this last launch! NASA says the Titan 4 is safe. (With a one-in-12 severe accident rate.) They say that the Cassini flyby on August 18, 1999 at 42,300 miles per hour just 496 miles overhead will be safe also.

-----

IF THE TITAN ACCIDENT HAD OCCURED WITH CASSINI, THE PLUTONIUM CANNISTER WOULD HAVE MOST LIKELY SURVIVED INTACT -- IT HAS BEEN DESIGNED AND TESTED TO DO SO. IN THE CHANCE THAT THE CANNISTER LANDED ON CONCRETE AND BROKE OPEN THE RELEASE OF PLUTONIUM PELLETS WOULD HAVE BEEN DANGEROUS ONLY IN A VERY LOCAL AREA, TO A VERY SMALL NUMBER OF PEOPLE -- LIKE ANY OTHER TYPE OF AIR, MISSILE, OR, FOR THAT MATTER, INDUSTRIAL ACCIDENT.

IN ALL OF THE HISTORY OF THE SPACE AGE, AFTER HUNDREDS OF TIMES, NEVER HAS A PLANET BEEN ACCIDENTLY HIT WHEN THE SPACECRAFT WAS INTENDED TO FLY-BY. IF EVERYTHING GOES WRONG THERE IS A LESS THAN A ONE-IN-A-MILLION CHANCE (PRECISELY CALCULATED FROM THE ORBITAL MECHANICS, NOT A ENGINEERING GUESS) OF A RE-ENTRY AND BREAKUP.

-----

The following is from Stop Cassini Earth Flyby web site. I have also heard this information on the Pacifica radio network.

The General Accounting Office in a May 1998 report entitled "Space Exploration: Power Sources for Deep Space Probes" says: "NASA is currently studying eight future space missions between 2000 and 2015 that will likely use nuclear-fueled electric generators."

These nuclear shots would be launched from Florida with the Titan 4 as a principle delivery vehicle. NASA began a shift to using the Titan 4 for its nuclear missions in the wake of the 1986 Challenger accident -- the next mission of the ill-fated Challenger was to loft a plutonium-fueled space probe.

Pressure from Lockheed Martin, which not only manufactures the Titan 4 but the plutonium systems, the nuclear-boosting U.S. Department of Energy and the national nuclear labs have much to do with why NASA insists on the life-threatening use of nuclear power on space devices. Then there is the military connection. The U.S. military is seeking to deploy spaceborne weaponry especially lasers. As the 1996 Air Force Report "New World Vistas: Air and Space Power for the 21st Century" states: "In the next two decades, new technologies will allow the fielding of space-based weapons of devastating effectiveness." But these weapons need large amounts of power, stresses "New World Vistas," going on: "A natural technology to enable high power is nuclear power in space."

-----

NASA HAS NO PLANS (ZERO!) TO USE TITAN 4 FOR PLANETARY LAUNCHES. THE VEHICLE HAS BEEN DEEMED TOO EXPENSIVE FOR PLANETARY MISSIONS.

SPACE WEAPONS IS A DIFFERENT SUBJECT -- I PERSONALLY MAY HAVE MUCH AGREEMENT WITH YOU ABOUT THIS SUBJECT; IT IS A SUBJECT CONFINED TO EARTH ORBIT WHICH BRINGS IN DIFFERENT PROBLEMS ALSO. BUT IT IS UNRELATED TO PLANETARY EXPLORATION, AND NO EFFORT IS BEING MADE BY THE MILITARY TO GET NASA TO FLY NUCLEAR POWER ON PLANETARY MISSIONS.

-----

Only modest amounts of electricity are produced by plutonium on space probes 745 watts on the Cassini mission to power instruments. This could be generated by safe, solar photovoltaic cells even far from the sun. Indeed, the European Space Agency is readying its Rosetta space probe to fly past the orbit of Jupiter to rendezvous with a comet and using solar energy to generate 500 watts instead of plutonium

-----

NUCLEAR POWER THROUGH RADIOISOTOPE THERMOELECTRIC GENERATORS IS RELATIVELY MODEST. BUT AT DISTANCES IN THE OUTER PLANETS IT IS THE ONLY PRACTICAL WAY TO SUPPLY POWER TO INSTRUMENTS (UNLESS YOU CAN IMAGINE FOOTBALL FIELD SIZED SOLAR ARRAYS WITH THEIR OWN MASSIVE WEIGHT AND UNRELIABILITY PROBLEMS).

NUCLEAR POWER WILL PROBABLY ALSO BE NEEDED FOR MARS LANDERS OF THE FUTURE -- SOLAR POWER IS VERY INEFFICIENT THERE ALSO (AS, WE MIGHT NOTE, HAS IT BEEN ON EARTH -- WHICH HAS TWICE THE SOLAR POWER AVAILABLE). BUT ALL SUCH USE WILL BE MODEST, AND VERY CAREFULLY CONTAINED AND CONTROLLED TO SAFETY STANDARDS THAT EXCEED THE OTHER PARTS OF THE MISSIONS.

-----

NASA, after seeing its budget drop with the end of the Apollo missions to the moon, got ever tighter with the Pentagon. The Pentagon would like to deploy weaponry powered by nuclear systems in space and this is another reason why NASA, seeking to stay in step with the military, insists on nuclear power in space even if it kills us.

___________

" . . . While we have much to learn through the exploration of space, in this instance the grave potential danger posed by the plutonium on the probe would seem to outweigh the potential benefit from this mission. It is too important to squander the public's trust on such a risky mission. A NASA that all Americans can support instills hope for the future, not fear of tragedy . . ."

(Letter from 15 members of U.S. Congress, dated September 26, 1997)

I feel that we should explore & colonize space but not with nuclear power.

-----

MY DETAILED LOOK AT THIS, MAKES ME BELIEVE THIS IS NOT POSSIBLE, OR ELSE TERRIBLY EXPENSIVE. BUT WE HAVE TO BE CAREFUL, AND WITHOUT HYPE, BUT WITH CARE, WE AND OTHER PUBLIC INTEREST GROUPS WILL CONTINUE TO WATCH FUTURE PLANS.

-----

Sincerely,
Roy Rendahl

Thank you Roy for sending this communication with Louis Friedman of The Planetary Society and your standing on principles in promoting a responsible "planetary society." Your letter and ideas give us hope to help people realize the deeper issues of NASA's interests of exploration in relationship with the military. If Mr. Friedman is interested in more information, please direct him to our website http://www.nonviolence.org/noflyby or send him "Why the Earth Flyby Must be Omitted," by Earl Budin, M/D., Assoc. Clinical Prof. of Radiology, UCLA Medical Center http://www.nonviolence.org/noflyby/ref/budin1.htm or the letter Selma Brackman of the War & Peace Foundation sent to the United Nations. http://www.nonviolence.org/noflyby/ref/war-un.htm These reference the recently discovered independent interagency safety review of Cassini, which was initially sent to us by Dr. Earl Budin, and the story is much different than the misleading NASA propaganda before the launch. You can also forward this letter to him.

Thanks again for your efforts in promoting planetary exploration without such unreasonable risks for our unique and thriving biological planet. I wonder if we have to lose, first, before we really learn what we are risking? I hope not. With best regards, Jonathan

Dear Jonathan,

Statements are no longer good enough. Action. A stunt to get publicity for ur cause. The fly-by is going to happen. Let it go. Make the fly-by a celebration of life, not a gloomy, anxious look towards the heavens. Peoole will never do that in the numbers that you need to change things. People don't want more depression in their lives. People lead lives of quiet desparation and fear. Just let the scientists do their job, then work to stop the next one from launching. Get an astronaut on your side!

He-he...

good luck,

committed to the inversion of society,

johnny durango(perez)

jonathan

[this is from Steve Jambeck of EnviroVideo]
At 11:04 PM 10/3/98 +0100, you wrote:

Hi, we are close to finishing NIS2. Its going to kick ass. Will let you know what to expect as we get closer, hopefully in 2 or 3 weeks. Time has been super tight. Hope alls well...Steve

END OF NOFLYBY FEEDBACK #3

And note the subtle change as we near the flyby in wording of the odds regarding the flyby failure rate. Here is the way NASA's 1995 EIS for the Cassini Mission refers (on page 4-44) to the odds:

"...a Cassini formal design requirement was imposed to ensure the expected probability of Earth impact does not exceed 10^-6 (i.e., 1 in a million) ... The JPL study was conducted to determine the necessary actions in spacecraft, ground system, and navigation to ensure that the probability of Earth impact would satisfy the design requirement. The study also included a quantitative assessment of the probability of Earth impact, including evaluation of the uncertainties in the assessment process."

(That last part says they even guessed about the accuracy of their guesses, and threw that number in too!)

NASA notes that some of the changes they made by the time of the 1995 EIS to achieve the Mythical Magical Millionth included raising the "minimum Earth swingby altitude" from just 300 km to 500 km. It was later raised again, to 800 km, again to achieve the Mythical Magical Millionth. But notice that NASA was once happy with flying this thing just 185 miles above Earth -- that's an awesomely close shave. They don't care. Friedman doesn't care.

The figure (1 in one million) is commonly referred to as the "Earth Impact Probability" in the NASA documentation. Now, Friedman uses the following phrase:

"IF EVERYTHING GOES WRONG THERE IS A LESS THAN A ONE-IN-A-MILLION CHANCE ... OF A RE-ENTRY AND BREAKUP"

So now he is changing the meaning of the value (1 in one million) -- or perhaps he doesn't understand it -- saying Cassini might reenter Earth's atmosphere (any time in the next millennium or so) for a variety of reasons, but if it doesn't break up upon reentry it doesn't count. That actually might be better, but it's not correct. But more importantly, it would be much more proper to say "if ANYTHING goes wrong there is less than a one-in-a-million chance of Earth impact". As shown above, Mr. Friedman cannot envision two concurrent accidents, like faulty gyros AND faulty self-destruct mechanisms. So he should not speak of "EVERYTHING" going wrong -- he doesn't appear to even understand two things going wrong. He's out of his league. Higher math bewilders him. Like two and above.

And note as well, that on page 4-104 of the same EIS, NASA states bluntly that "With respect to the long-term inadvertent reentry accident, the performance and behavior of the materials used in the RTGs after many years (a decade to millennia) in a space environment is highly uncertain." So did they assume the worst-case scenario, where the containment system has become brittle and useless? NO! The same paragraph on page 4-104 concludes, "The radiological consequences of a long-term inadvertent reentry were therefore assumed to be similar to (same order of magnitude) those estimated for the short-term VVEJGA inadvertent reentry."

And lastly notice that he really proves himself to be a shill for the entire nuclear industry with his offhand slight against even Earth solar solutions. Earth solar has proven itself time and again, and is way-underutilized as nearly everyone knows, except Friedman. Other underutilized energy solutions include wind, hydro, geothermal, wave, tide and conservation. Just thought I'd mention it.

***
*** In Conclusion:
***
This newsletter may be distributed as needed and will be posted at our STOP CASSINI web site:

http://www.animatedsoftware.com/cassini/cassini.htm

For subscription information regarding the STOP CASSINI free electronic newsletter, please visit the web site.

**************************************
AND IN CONCLUSION...
**************************************

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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