As you people may know a probe has been sent out towards Venus to gain enough speed for its long travel to Saturn along with Titan and Iapetus, both moons of Saturn, which goes by the name of Casinni. This probes objectives are to investigate the three dimentional structure of the rings of Saturn, investigate the dark organic matter on Iapetus that seems to reflect close to no light, and investigate the weather conditions/ cloud physics/ and atmospheric chemistry of Titan. This probe is different than any other that has come before it because it also carries on board 72lbs of Plutonium dioxide. Many activists are taking a stance against this probe for the nature that it, after flying to Venus for speed, will fly towards Earth to also gain speed. The activists are worried that the probe could be hit by interplanetary debris and which would have released more than 400,000 curies of radiation in a breathable/ingest able form. This would have resulted in millions of fatalities and untold suffering of youths to come. The activists also believe that if there were trouble with the take off that there would be a lot more at stake then just the explosion. What do you people think about this type of mission and "possible" threat involved? (BTW.... the probe did sucessfully make its fly by in 1999)
This is not a new worry, Oort. The launch of (I think it was) Voyager contained radioactive substances for the powerplant. At the time there was a lot of too-do about the possibility of something happening during the launch and the scenario that you mention coming to be. The launch was delayed for a while and then eventually allowed to proceed. NASA is well aware of this possibility. The power plant is usually capable of sustaining massive damage and still not be a danger. It is designed so. Also the power plant is not active during launch and only becomes active after it is well away from the earth. I hope this helps. Welcome to Sciforums Oort. I take it your netname comes from the Oort cloud.
Somewhere I read that the amount of radiation that will fall on earth's habitable area (standardized to per sqft ), due to any accidents from such probes is insignificant compared to the background radiation of Uranium deposits in the state of Utah. So think about that when your food that you consume passes through those area while travelling on the truck from California to East Coast - day after day, year after year - as long as you live. I am not going to mention the nuclear items that moves on the major highways in USA, and Europe....
People who have other axes to grind sponsor a lot of the “greenpreace” type movements and it is the simplest way to hinder someone else. No needs of court right or wrong.
I personally don't feel there is any real danger here. I just think it may be interesting to see what may be packed onto those probes in the future and the possible reprocusions if there happen to be a malfunction (like challenger). wet1, thanks for the welcoming. And yes the name originates from the Oort Cloud.
