Cassini Launch Faces Lawsuit, Protests
Posted to the web: Wed Oct 8 18:51:19 EDT 1997
GAINSVILLE, Florida, October 8, 1997 (ENS) - The controversial
plutonium-powered Cassini satellite scheduled for launch from Cape
Canaveral on October 13 is now facing a legal challenge as well as activist
protests. The Florida Coalition For Peace & Justice and the Hawaii County
Green Party jointly filed a lawsuit yesterday in Federal District Court in
Honolulu, Hawaii seeking an injunction to block the launch.
The case will be heard Friday morning. The groups maintain that the
decision of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to
employ plutonium-238 to power Cassini while it is in space is "capricious
and arbitrary" in light of documents in NASA's possession proving that
solar power could provide the same power with far less risk to life on
Earth. Plutonium is radioactive and is considered the most carcinogenic
substance known.
Bruce Gagnon, founder of the Florida Coalition For Peace & Justice, and
other critics of the $3.4 billion mission maintain that the 72.3 pounds of
plutonium aboard Cassini will be deadly if the spacecraft blows up or
re-enters Earth's atmosphere after launch.
NASA plans for the Cassini space probe to spend 11 years in space flying to
Saturn to explore the ringed planet and its moon Titan. The mission calls
for Cassini to fly by Venus twice, then fly by Earth and Jupiter before
arriving at Saturn in July 2004 for a four-year study of the giant planet,
sixth from the Sun.
The 18 modules of plutonium aboard Cassini is in ceramic form encased in
iridium. As it decays, the heat produced will provide power for the
spacecraft. The craft will be launched by a Titan IV rocket, which NASA has
acknowledged has a historical failure rate of one in 20, but NASA says the
chance of a plutonium release is low.
The Cassini launch has drawn urgent protests across America and elsewhere
in the world. One thousand people marched to front gates of Cape Canaveral
last Saturday, October 4. Twenty-seven were arrested for trespassing after
they climbed the fence and stormed the gates with the intention of staging
a sit-in on the Cassini launch pad.
Yesterday 11 people were arrested in Burlington, Vermont when they
protested the Cassini launch by carrying 72 lbs of cow manure into the
office of U.S. Senator James Jeffords, a Republican. The protesters then
chained themselves by the neck to his desk with bike locks. The Burlington
Fire Department had to cut the desk apart to remove the demonstrators. All
11 are now out of jail and the court date is set for November 18th.
On Monday, two women in London were arrested for painting "Cancel Cassini"
slogans on the walls of the U.S. embassy.
Thursday at noon, a protest is scheduled at home of Cassini, the Jet
Propulsiion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. A featured speaker will be
Walt Taylor, a missle mechanic who works on the Titan IV launch vehicle who
says the Titan IV launcher is the "weak link in the chain." He expects to
be fired or forced to quit his job after his speech at the rally. Taylor is
dying from the effects of chemical contamination from rocket fuel he is in
contact with on the job.
The protest at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory is endorsed by Physicians for
Social Responsibility-Los Angeles, Americans for a Safe Future, Plutonium
Free Future, Grandmothers for Peace, Americans for Democratic Action,
Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, CALPIRG, Eco Expo, and
the Alliance for Survival and Women.
The Florida Coalition For Peace & Justice has been at the front gate of
Cape Canaveral from 6 to 8 am and from 3 to 4:30 pm every day for the last
two weeks. This Saturday the group will hold a picnic and celebration of
life at noon at the front gate.
>From his office in Queens, New York, Mark Elsis of Lovearth is organizing a
rally and candlelight vigil in front of the White House on Sunday starting
at 2 pm. People will gather in Lafayette Park; the rally will be followed
by sunset meditation, and people will be there all night until 4:45 am
October 13, the scheduled time of the Cassini lift-off.
President Bill Clinton will not be at the White House to witness the rally.
He leaves October 12 for a long-planned trip to South America where he will
meet leaders of Venezuela, Brazil, and Argentina. The President approved
the plutonium-powered spacecraft last week.
Speakers at the White House rally include Daniel Ellsberg, famous for his
role in releasing classified Pentagon Papers revealing U.S. involvement in
the Vietnam War back in 1971. Ellsberg is now director of the Manhattan
Project II to halt the use of all nuclear energy. Also speaking will be Dr.
Ernest Sternglass, professor emeritus of radiological physics at the
University of Pittsburgh and physicist Dr. Michu Kaku who is trying to
collect funding for independent monitoring of plutonium given off by the
Cassini launch.
After participating in the White House rally Elsis plans to hop a plane
down to Florida and go fishing - in international waters off Cape Canaveral
- along with a number of other boats. During launches NASA establishes a
no-fly zone 8 miles wide and 40 miles out into the Atlantic Ocean. If a
boat is in that zone, as a shrimp boat was five weeks ago during the launch
of a Delta II rocket, a disruption is created, and the launch window of
less than three hours could be lost.
Elsis expects protesters "will be out in force on water, land and in the
sky - parachutists, seal teams - people are thinking of doing a lot of
kinds of protests." Elsis, who has never been arrested, is prepared to go
to jail to stop the Cassini launch for even one day.
"Cassini can be delayed one day, maybe two if enough people are playing
games, but we can captivate the media of the world," says Elsis. He
believes the threat to life on Earth from a possible Cassini accident is
the "number one censored story on Earth."
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