(August 31, 1990) Despite the series of recent National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) problems and opposition from a number of US citizens' groups, NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) are pushing ahead with the Ulysses shuttle mission for October 1990.
(337.3369) WISE Amsterdam - ESA Is providing the probe and NASA is supplying the plutonium power source and the launch vehicle). The mission is comparable to last year's Galileo (see WISE News Communique's 318. 2108, p.1-2 and 320.3214, p.7-8). It too involves a Challenger-type shuttle carrying into space a probe containing 23.7 pounds of plutonium. The probe would then be launched from the shuttle. The plutonium would not be used to propel the shuttle but as fuel in a generator to provide 284 watts of electricity for the probe's instrumentation.
Opposition to Ulysses is even broader than was resistance to Galileo and unlike Galileo It is international due to ESA's involvement. "We don't want to see nuclear-powered space flights because of the danger of radioactive contamination. It's very simple," says Inge Lindemann, chairperson of the anti-nuclear forum of the Green Party of West Germany. The Greens intend to press the Parliament of West Germany, which is a member of the ESA, not to pursue the mission. Mean-while, the same groups which brought a lawsuit to try to stop Galileo have amended the litigation to attempt to block the Ulysses launch and also to have the Galileo mission halted before its probe - containing 49.25 pounds of plutonium - makes two "flybys" of the Earth. The parties in the lawsuit - the Christie Institute and Foundation on Economic Trends, both of Washington DC, and the Florida Coalition for Peace and Justice - declare in the new legal papers that if there is an accident during the Ulysses flight and plutonium is released "many persons will be subjected to a wholly unnecessary risk of contracting cancer."
Protests are also being planned. The Florida Coalition is planning a major demonstration at the Kennedy Space Center on 22 September and is calling for world-wide protests. The Coalition is also engaged in a petition drive calling on NASA, the Department of Energy and the US Congress "to stop" the mission and a letter writing campaign to Congress and newspapers calling for "funding of alternative power sources for space exploration."
A variety of accident odds are given for Ulysses in NASA's Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the mission - from 1.8 in 100,000 for a "fire/explosion" at launch to 1.5 In 100,000 for the shuttle falling beck to Earth from orbit. The statement holds that "the probability of release" of plutonium on the flight is "about 1 in 4,200." It admits: "In the unlikely event the (plutonium) modules impact on hard rock, a release is predicted to occur." If there is a plutonium release, NASA outlines in the statement "decontamination methods" for Florida or any site in the "global commons" which would be hit by the plutonium: "Removal and disposal of all vegetation, removal and disposal of topsoil, relocation of animals...Demolition of some or all structures, permanent relocation of affected population...Destruction of citrus and other perennial growing stocks, banning of future agricultural land uses."
But in public, NASA is avoiding the word "plutonium". In it's two-paged 17 May press release, it did not once mention plutonium or note that nuclear power is to be used on the probe.
What is most ironic, though, is NASA's claims that there is no other feasible power source. Ulysses is to orbit the Sun and is thus obviously well-suited for solar energy. NASA, in its EIS, acknowledges that a solar system that could be used on the mission will be undergoing "ground demonstration" next year, a "flight experiment" in 1993, and will be available for use in the late 1990s.
Sources:
- Karl Grossman (journalism professor at the State University of New York/College at Old Westbury and the author of two books on nuclear technology: "Cover Up What You Are Not Supposed To Know About Nuclear Power" and "Power Crazy"), 26 July 1990
- Radwaste Report (US), August 1990, p.16
Contact: Contacts: Karl Grossman, Box 1680, Sag Harbor, New York 11963, US, tel: (516) 725-2858
Florida Coalition for Peace and Justice, P0 Box 2486, Orlando, Florida 32802, US, tel: (407) 422-3479