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.

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.

>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.

Cheers

–Fred

— Donald

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.

I find it much more likely that the anti-nuclear folks are busy carrying “no blood for oil” signs.

–Fred
My Blog: Political Fred