I noted here last month that there has been very little controversy surrounding the pending launch of NASA’s New Horizons mission, a spacecraft powered by an RTG. That has changed a little bit, but not significantly, in the last couple of weeks. The most notable development was a protest outside the gates of Cape Canaveral last weekend. The protest drew “about 30″ protestors, according to the Orlando Sentinel, but the report notes that a similar demonstration before the launch of Cassini in 1997 attracted 800 people. Florida Today counted “about three dozen” protestors, but a photo shows that at least one of those three dozen didn’t look that enthused to be there.
Anti-nuclear protestors have also been a little more active online, but not by much. Bruce Gagnon, one of the leaders of the protests against the Cassini mission, did take time on his blog to discuss last weekend’s protest, but most of his blog is still devoted to other issues. (Gagnon is still the go-to person for sound bites, though, including quotes in a Houston Chronicle article about the mission.) Karl Grossman, a long-time activist, is distributing an essay critical of the mission through a service called MintemanMedia.org; it has been picked up by a few publications, like the Topeka Capital-Journal [registration required].
Another veteran of the Cassini Wars, Russell Hoffman, recently penned a similar piece for a left-wing online publication, CounterPunch. Hoffman lays the rhetoric on thick:
The name similarity between the destination and the power source is unlikely to have been a coincidence: NASA probably chose this particular mission because they were sure no “anti-nuclear activist” could legitimately claim you could run experiments once you got to Pluto with solar power — you needed (so NASA claimed) plutonium for THIS mission, and that’s why THIS mission was chosen.
Riiiiggghhhhttt. Not that any of these efforts are having any effect: Florida Today reported this morning that both President George Bush and Florida Governor Jeb Bush have signed off on the launch, which passed its launch readiness review Thursday.
It’s amazing to me how separate from reality those folks are. To think that NASA selected a mission because it uses nuclear power and is similar to Cassini is beyond ridiculous. As with so much in the environomental movement’s opposition to all things nuclear, these demonstrators don’t seem to understand what they are protesting at all.
I think it’s sad that people use their children as pawns in their protests, rather than teaching their children the value of thorough research and critical thinking. Another generation will be plagued by scientific illiteracy. ::sigh::