by Karl Grossman
Nuclear-powered activities in space are illegal under the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, which the United Nations describes as the "basic framework on international space law." The Outer Space Treaty also specifies: "States shall be liable for damage caused by their space objects."
Since 1991, the US has been covering its nuclear space flights with the Price-Anderson Act. This US law limits liability for a nuclear accident, including one involving any nuclear-fueled space device such as Cassini, to $8.9 billion for US domestic damage and just $100 million for damage to all foreign nations.
If Cassini "inadvertently" reenters Earth's atmosphere on its planned August 1999 Earth "fly-by" and strikes Africa or Asia or Europe or Latin America, all affected nations could collect only a total of $100 million in damages from NASA. US congressional counsel Dan Berkovitz explained: "You have to understand that the rest of the world is not much of a constituency here in Washington."
NASA intends to send the Cassini space probe and its 72.3 pounds of plutonium dioxide fuel hurtling toward Earth at 42,300 miles per hour for a "gravity assist" or "slingshot" maneuver to give the probe the increased speed it will need to reach Saturn. It's supposed to buzz the Earth 496 miles up on August 18, 1999.
But, concedes NASA's Final Environmental Impact Statement for the Cassini Mission, if the probe does not come in at 496 miles high, - if it wobbles in the upper atmosphere - it will break up. Plutonium will be released. According to the statement, "approximately 5 billion of the estimated 7 to 8 billion world population… could receive 99 percent or more of the radiation exposure."
NASA says 2,300 fatal cancers could result. It also outlines its plan: if plutonium rains down on areas of natural vegetation, "relocate animals;" if it falls an agricultural land, "ban future agricultural land uses;" and if it descends on urban areas, "demolish some or all structures" and "relocate affected population permanently."
The US government Interagency Nuclear Safety Review Panel's Safety Evaluation Report on the Cassini Mission, obtained by Dr. Earl Budin of UCLA, speaks of the possibility of "tens of thousands" of cancer deaths. It also notes that in a Cassini "fly-by" accident, plutonium canisters "not designed for the high speed reentry" could rupture, providing "a collective dose [of vaporized plutonium] to the world's population."
A report from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory also obtained by Dr. Budin lists some 20-plus ways, "from rocket engine failure to ground control error," that Cassini can undergo an "Earth impact."
Of course, NASA insists the likelihood of this is small. On August 12, 1998, a Titan IV rocket like the one that had lofted Cassini exploded on launch at Cape Canaveral, blowing a $1.3 billion US spy satellite to smithereens. In 1993, another Titan IV blew up on launch. Twenty-five Titan IV launches, two disastrous launch accidents. Cassini did get up, but that's a record of one-in-12 for catastrophic launch accidents.
NASA, as Nobel laureate Richard Feynman of the Presidential investigative commission on the Challenger accident concluded, "exaggerates the reliability of its product to the point of fantasy."
Moreover, if the Cassini Earth "fly-by" is successful, NASA is planning eight more plutonium bearing space probe shots in coming years, reports the US General Accounting Office. A NASA statement speaks of 13. With a 12% failure rate in both the US and Soviet/Russian space nuclear programs, accidents are inevitable. The United States is also moving to deploy weapons in space and to exercise what it terms "space control." This is closely linked with space nuclear power.
As the 1996 US Air Force report New World Vistas states: "In the next two decades, new technologies will allow ... space-based weapons of devastating effectiveness to be used ... in tactical and strategic conflict… These advances will enable lasers with reasonable mass and cost to effect very many kills." But, notes the report, "power limitations impose restrictions" on space-based weapons systems making them "relatively unfeasible." One solution "is nuclear power in space."
In April, 1998, the US government let contracts for the development of this spaceborne laser, not nuclear powered but a first step towards space-based nuclear-energized weaponry.
The Outer Space Treaty bans deployment in space of "weapons of mass destruction." This treaty, initiated by the US, the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union and now ratified by 91 countries, also states that nations should avoid activities that stand to produce "harmful contamination (of) space and celestial bodies" as well as "adverse changes in the environment of the Earth."
General Joseph Ashy, commander-in-chief of the US Space Command, has stated: "It's politically sensitive, but it's going to happen… Some people don't want to hear this, and it sure isn't in vogue, but absolutely we're going to fight in space. We're going to fight from space and we're going to fight into space."
The US space weapons approach is detailed in The Future of War: Power, Technology & American World Dominance in the 2lst Century, in which George and Meredith Friedman state that through the deployment of weaponry in space, the US will be able to dominate the planet below. "Just as Europe shaped the world for a half a millennium" - with Britain, France and Spain dominating the oceans with their fleets - "so too the United States will shape the world for at least that length of time," they declare. They boost the use of nuclear power as an energy source for space-based weapons.
The new space-borne laser contract was announced at a US National Space Symposium in April. Ads for the symposium said it was designed to "explore the Global Relevance of Space and the interdependence of Civil and Commercial and Military space efforts." It is clear that "space is open for business.'"
Space must not be declared "open" for colossally dangerous, wasteful and illegal nuclear and military "business." Space, as the Outer Space Treaty states, should be used "for peaceful purposes… The exploration and use of outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interest of all countries."
Karl Grossman is a full professor of journalism at the State University of New York/College at Old Westbury who for almost 30 years has combined investigative reporting and environmental journalism. He is the author of The Wrong Stuff: The Space Program's Nuclear Threat To Our Planet (Common Courage Press, 1997) and writer and narrator of the award-winning video documentary Nukes In Space: The Nuclearization and Weaponization of the Heavens (EnviroVideo 1995). He is a member of the Commission on Disarmament Education, Conflict Resolution and Peace of the International Association of University Presidents and the United Nations.
U.S. Violates World Law to Weaponize Space