The last time NASA launched a spacecraft that used radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs), the Cassini mission in October 1997, there was a modest amount of controversy surrounding the launch. The fear of radioactive contamination in the event of a launch accident, and ill-defined concerns by anti-nuclear activists that this was the spearhead for the “nuclearization” and weaponization of space generated its fair share of heated rhetoric, protests, and even legal efforts to block the launch. The Massachusetts House of Representatives even passed a resolution asking the President to stop the launch. (The last was particularly galling to me personally, being a Massachusetts resident at the time; I contacted the sponsors of the resolution but got little more than cursory responses.)
None of those efforts, of course, blocked the launch, and in retrospect those efforts were minor league. According to one nth-hand account, those protesting the mission outside the White House several weeks before the launch were outnumbered by counterprotestors, organized by the NSS, supporting the launch; both were outnumbered, though, by people spending a Sunday afternoon rollerblading on Pennsylvania Avenue. Even the Massachusetts resolution, as I learned from a staffer in the office of my representative, was a perfunctory measure, passed by the house with no debate and little thought.
Now, NASA is gearing up to launch its first RTG-powered spacecraft since Cassini, the New Horizons mission to Pluto. Yet, unlike Cassini, there is remarkably little controversy surrounding the launch, even when considering the relatively limited opposition to Cassini. With the launch just under a month away, there has been little discussion about the spacecraft’s use of RTGs, and few reports of any organized opposition beyond the usual suspects (like Bruce Gagnon and Karl Grossman). Most of the attention has been by local newspapers, whose readers would obviously be most interested—and concerned—in any threat to their safety. And two newspapers in the area, the Daytona Beach News-Journal last week and Florida Today on Sunday, both published editorials strongly supporting the mission. “This is not a mission to be feared,” the Florida Today editorial concludes. “Rather, it’s a mission that holds significant potential to advance knowledge about the mechanics of the universe.” (The Daytona Beach editorial does not even bring up the RTG issue; it rather addresses the costs and risks of human versus robotic exploration: “…no one will die if the piano-size New Horizons spacecraft smashes into Charon.”)
So what’s the difference between 1997 and 2005? It’s certainly not a case of familiarity, given the lack of RTG-powered missions between Cassini and New Horizons. Perhaps given the issues of today, like terrorism, the Iraq war, hurricane relief, and the avian flu—issues that did not exist or were not pressing concerns eight years ago—people don’t have the time or inclination to think about, let alone worry about, the relatively tiny risk posed by the launch of a small spacecraft carrying an RTG.
Another controversy that’s been in the press recently has been the cleanup at Rocky Flats, CO, where plutonium ‘pits’ for nuclear weapons were fabricated. The cleanup cost $7 B, but that cost was achieved by reducing the level of cleanup below that initially desired (which would have cost $36 B).
Needless to say, this is a lot of money, for a facility that, over its life, processed on the order of 100 tons of plutonium. It’s not entirely ridiculous to imagine that it would have made sense to move pit fabrication off the planet, just to save on the cleanup costs. Maybe if launch and space operations costs decline a bit that would end up being the prefered approach.
This is a very interesting set of observations, I had not been aware of the anti-nuclear activism during the Cassini launch. Could it be an issue of the number of RTGs aboard, do people not think it’s dangerous because there is not as much plutonium aboard? I know that Cassini is much larger craft, isn’t it?
Another change since 1997 that may be affecting the lack of protest of the launch is that the environmental movement no longer fears all things nuclear (weapons excluded) as much as it did a decade ago.
Finally, I just have to say that no one would die in car crashes if we all stayed at home and telecommuted to work and family gatherings, either. If newspaper editorial boards are concerned about the loss of human life, perhaps they should focus on some issue like the lack of an effective malaria treatment as that disease kills millions each year. Focusing on the deaths of space explorers who knew what they were getting into is a cowardly editorial position.
Given the tone of the protests in Cassini (“there’s enough plutonium to kill everyone on Earth”), I think Jeff has the best theory. There’s just plenty of other things to be concerned about.
My favorite Cassini moment (heard thirdhand) came when a news reporter asked the Air Force Launch Controller whether they were concerned about launching a spacecraft with plutonium onboard. The AFLC responded “I’m more concerned about the tons of toxic propellants fueling the booster.” After a small, silent pause, the reporter got back to the nuclear issue.
“According to one nth-hand account, those protesting the mission outside the White House several weeks before the launch were outnumbered by counterprotestors, organized by the NSS, supporting the launch; both were outnumbered, though, by people spending a Sunday afternoon rollerblading on Pennsylvania Avenue.”
I was one of the people there with the NSS group. If memory serves, we had about 15-20 people. The anti-nuclear protesters had about 5-6, including one guy who carried a skull and crossbones flag and marched up and down the street. It was a wet and rainy day, so I don’t think there were _that_ many rollerbladers. There were other tourists, however, but I doubt that they outnumbered both groups. In fact, I think that the NSS group probably constituted the majority of people there in front of the White House for that short period on a rainy day. All in all, it was rather anti-climatic and got NO mention in the press anywhere, except perhaps a short article in Ad Astra. I also think that the anti-nuke folks had at least one other protest in front of the White House, either before or after this one, but again were unable to get a significant number of people.
My opinion was that all of the media coverage of the Cassini launch was pretty shallow. There were at least two protests outside of the Cape Canaveral gate. I believe that one attracted about a dozen or so people, but another “march” attracted perhaps a hundred people. The legal challenges were rather weak as well. At the time 60 Minutes also did a report on it that demonstrated the way the media tries to “balance” issues–they had someone from NASA say that the launch was safe, and then they got NYU Professor Michio Kaku (not a nuclear expert) to say that a launch failure would kill every living human being on the planet, or something similar. Even a worst-case situation would never do anything like this, but the media does a generally poor job of covering science issues and fails to acknowledge that not all scientific disputes are merely matters of opinion; some are based on certifiable facts.
I later appeared on some CNN program to discuss the Cassini launch and was surprised by how little the producer who called me knew about the subject. I believe that they called the office and wanted my boss, who was on travel. So I talked to them instead and the producer was totally surprised that I was not opposed to the launch; I think he assumed that only NASA people would favor the launch. I agreed to appear, with the precondition that I was not qualified to discuss the technical issues and would only discuss the past experience with launching nuclear cargoes and how the launch process was approved. I’m a policy guy, not a nukular technician. The interview went well and we primarily ended up discussing what Cassini would do during its mission.
As for why New Horizons is not getting as much protest and publicity? My suspicion is that it has something to do with the disorganization of the anti-nuclear groups. They were never terribly well-organized before, and the website for the key group, Florida Coalition for Peace and Justice, was a mishmash, presenting an image of a poorly-led organization. I always thought that they achieved far more than they had any right to, because they were pretty sloppy. And I also thought that NASA and the military should be thankful that the opposition was so inept. It could be that the poorly-organized groups back then have even less organization today.
I think one should look outside space to the general nuclear industry for an explanation. Nuclear power in general is getting a big boost from the spike in carbon prices and the realization that wind and hydro are not all that great for the environment either and that solar is way too expensive. Kyoto and carbon bashing are minor compared to the oil price spike.
We have a major government priority to get new nukes built, get Yucca mountain dug and it’s been nearly 20 years since Chernobyl.
Another thing boosting nuclear power is the increasingly efficient way the existing plants are being operated. The capacity factor (the average power generated divided by rated power) of US nuclear plants has increased steadily, driving down the cost of the electricity. It’s the usual incremental gains that come from experience.
The oil price spike has little to do with the US electricity market; the natural gas price spike is much more relevant, since much of the generating capacity that came online in the 80s and 90s was from gas-fired combustion turbines. This capacity is now very noncompetitive, and I understand many of the turbines have been repossessed from the bankrupt companies who had been selling power to utilities.
Nuclear waste is a non-issue, IMO. The spent fuel rods are going to be stored in dry armored casks, not underground. The casks, once sealed, will last for centuries. At some point our distant descendants, who will have far more advanced technology, will decide what, if anything, needs to be done with them. My guess is they’ll use some flavor of space disposal.
CO2 isn’t a big motivator in the US. There are 90 new coal-fired powerplants on the drawing boards; they mostly don’t even use the more efficient combined cycle technologies. I understand state utility regulators often require the utilities to use the cheapest source of power, and explicitly forbid them from taking into account risk from possible future CO2 emission regulations.
Finally, I just have to say that no one would die in car crashes if we all stayed at home and telecommuted to work and family gatherings, either. . . . Focusing on the deaths of space explorers who knew what they were getting into is a cowardly editorial position.
I agree, Anthony. Nuclear power is not the only thing we are irrational about. If we spent half of what we spend trying to make the Space Shuttle “safe” actually flying missions, we probably would not have lost that many more crews and we’d be a whole lot closer to a spacefaring civilization. We either need to give up altogether and stay at home, or bite the bullet and recognize that exploring the Solar System at reasonable cost will inevitably result in a lot of lost lives. We focus on the increased radiation deaths of astronauts sent to Mars, but I’ll bet the risk is a whole lot less than driving to work every day of your life — which most of us do without thinking.
All that said, I think the emotional reactions to the nuclear issue has to do with the lack of personal control. If you drive to work every day, that is a decision you personally have made and you have at least theoretical control of the risk you are taking (you are a good or careful driver and / or you are aware of the high risks involved but chose to ignore them because the benefits outweight the costs — or you just ignore them and pretend they’ll go away). If you die because “the government” screwed up launching a nuclear-powered probe, or because a government-regulated company failed to prevent a meltdown, you had no direct control over the decisions and actions that resulted in your death.
— Donald
I seriously doubt that the opponents of Cassini thought this through, but one could say that Cassini was a much greater risk because of the Earth flybys that are absent in New Horizons.
I find it much more likely that the anti-nuclear folks are busy carrying “no blood for oil” signs.
–Fred
My Blog: Political Fred
I think the Cassini protest was the final straw for the anti space plutonium protestors. I urged NSS to organize a counter demostration when the anti cassini group claimed they would have 300 protestors. I wanted to make sure the were not the only ones heard.
I believe we had least 40 or 50 pro cassini demonstrators.
Since there are people on the left who will show up for nearly any cause it was highly embaressing for them to get so few protestors.
We did get attention from the White house that day as I remember that at one point a group of people came out on the balcony to look at the demostration. I also think the situation amused the secret service.
Reporters were covering the demostration and I am sure would have put more in the press if it had become a real issue.
The anti-nuke people tried to make it and issue and it didn’t work.
Fred, Earth flybys may be absent in New Horizons but one of the things discussed at last week’s American Geophysical Union conference was a new generation of RTGs that are completing development. A whole new generation of missions that were impossibly difficult before (e.g., interstellar precursors, Titan and Europa landers) are now in active pre-proposal planning and many of these do utilize the Earth-Earth-Jupiter trajectory.
— Donald
I am very pro-nuclear so long as the engineering is done to take into account accident mitigation. Fast flybys can be taken into account — and they should be before the “sky is falling” crowd starts protesting.
Cheers
–Fred
Dwayne wrote:
>NYU Professor Michio Kaku (not a nuclear expert)
That wasn’t how he billed himself at the time. I attended an anti-Cassini rally held at MIT, as a pro-Cassini representative of the SEDS chapter (I think Jeff was there too). My notes are long gone, but I do recall Kaku calling himself one of Edward Teller’s protoges, and that the Cassini probe was the “last of the Cold war dinosaurs.” Kaku also said something to the effect that space nuclear power was just the first step in the Pentagon’s plan to put a military base on the Moon.
It soon became a apparent that Kaku was just trying to generate publicity for a book he had just released. None of the arguments against Cassini at the rally really made much technical sense. I don’t think they were supposed to.
I think a big difference now is that NASA has not publicized New Horizons as much as Cassini. Cassini took years to build, was a major spacecraft with a lander, and an important international collaboration. It was in the public conscienceness long enough to attract the attention of the anti-nuke crowd.
My first reaction when I heard that New Horizons was going to launch next month was “so soon?” The last I could remember hearing about it was that it got caught in the crossfire of a Congressional budget battle a few years ago. Plus NASA has had enough success with the MER’s and, ironically enough, Cassini, that it hasn’t needed to talk about this one as much.
Still, I do wish they were launching two of them. New Horizons seems to be a fairly simple design, but a 9 year cruise in deep space is an awfully long time for something to go wrong.
Yes, I was at the anti-Cassini event at MIT in the fall of 1997, about a month or so before the launch. While the event was held in an MIT lecture hall, I think Frank and I were just about the only members of the MIT community present; the rest were from anti-war organizations in the area (this is Cambridge, after all.) Needless to say, we were about the only pro-Cassini people there.
I did some checking to see if Kaku had anything to say about New Horizons, but if he has spoken out about it, he has kept a low profile. A Google News search for Michio Kaku didn’t turn up any articles where he was quoted on the mission in the last month or so, and there’s nothing about it on his web site.
I did a little more digging last night and found “Organizing Notes”, a blog run by Bruce Gagnon, perhaps the most vociferous opponent of Cassini and space nuclear power in general. His most recent posts, dating back to November 30, have been on Iraq, politics, Iraq, Iraq, snow (!), Iraq, and politics. He did publish a few posts against the New Horizons mission, like this one from November 28 about striking workers that would have been involved with integrating the spacecraft with its upper stage, and this one from five days earlier calling for the mission’s cancellation. However, from his blog it appears that he is occupied primarily with protests against the war in Iraq and doesn’t appear to have much time to devote to protest New Horizons—which may be the best explanation yet about why there’s been so little said against the mission from the peace/anti-nuclear communities.
Yup. If loony tunes Bruce doesn’t have time for this issue, no one does.
I guess they’re too busy protesting against the ultimate consequences of their anti-nuclear policies than to pay attention to the original activism that brought us to this point in time.
His most recent posts, dating back to November 30, have been on Iraq, politics, Iraq, Iraq, snow (!), Iraq, and politics.
In Bruce’s snow post he even worked in a mention on the Iraq war as in “I’ve got to speed up I’m not doing enough to end the war while I’m watching the snow fall”.
It’s worth a read, if only to see an unintentional pastiche of Thoreau.
[sarcasm] Maybe he is busy protesting Iranian Nuclear ambitions [/sarcasm]