-Caveat Lector-
Response to Craig DeForest (SOHO) response to EcoNews Service CME coverage,
June 12, 1999:
>>Dear Craig - Thank you deeply for your e-mail. We appreciate your
first-hand knowledge of the CME event, and your willingness to share the
events you witnessed, not to mention your personal honesty and integrity. We
will forward it to Mitch Battros, to set the record straight.
The continuing risk for Cassini remains, however, and you yourself summed up
some of the unknowables:
> Because I don't design spacecraft for a living, I don't know how
> vulnerable Cassini might be to a coronal mass ejection from the Sun.
> I do know that deep-space probes are carefully designed with just that
> type of disturbance in mind. SOHO, which is outside the Earth's
> protective magnetic field, has weathered countless such events without a
> hitch, as have the Voyager probes from the 1970s, the recent Venus orbiter
> that mapped the surface of that planet, and innumerable other bits of NASA
> hardware flying around the solar system.
>
The concerns for the Cassini flyby after its June 24 Venus flyby are multiple
and remain, especially during the period of high solar event risk through
January 2001. Our understanding is that more advanced, safer solar power
packs were available in the design
phase, and were overruled in favour of the plutonium RTG's, for reasons which
remain obscure, and which are not justified by the environmental risks
involved.
Moreover, you may not be aware that the Cassini Earth flyby (Aug. 18) is
scheduled just a week after the Aug. 11 Solar Eclipse, the last of this
century. This timing adds immeasurably to Cassini's
risk. We urge you to study the material at:
http://www.globalpsychics.com/lp/Prophecy/grand_cross.htm
Please feel free to share this material with the more open of your
colleagues;both the article by Antaro Alli and by EcoNews. We would welcome
your comments, especially of the alternative perspectives. Science does not
occur is a social vacuum, but is part of our larger civilization.
Some of these considerations were raised in yesterday's Stop Cassini
Demonstration at NASA headquarters (below). On reflection, we beleive you
will begin to understand the depth of feeling on the Cassini issue, not to
mention the strangeness of the press and information embargo in the United
States. Rarely in our experience have we experienced an embargo like this
one. Something is not right here, on mature reflection.
Please feel free to contact us at any time, Craig. Your input is very
valuable, and unique, and most welcome.
Geri DeStefano PhD
Alfred Lambremont Webre, JD, MEd
NEWS STORY:
=====
Hiroshima-Nagasaki Commemoration Committee, 4806 York Road,
Baltimore, MD
21212
Ph: 410-323-7200 or 410-377-7987 Fax: 410-323-7292
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
June 11, 1999
ACTIVISTS DELIVER CANCEL CASSINI FLYBY LETTER TO
NASA HEADQUARTERS
Baltimore's Hiroshima-Nagasaki Commemoration Committee
organized a demonstration outside NASA headquarters in
Washington, D.C. on Friday, June 11, 1999 from 12 noon to 1 PM.
Eight anti-plutonium demonstrators marched with signs among the
lunchtime crowd. The signs said, "Cassini Spells Disaster," "No
Nukes in Space," "Stop Cassini Flyby," "No Weapons in Space"
and "Maryland Safe Energy Coalition." Photographs of the
demonstration were taken and are to be made available to the
Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space.
At 1:15 PM, four of the activists entered the building to deliver a
letter addressed to NASA director Dan Goldin. A security
representative informed the delegation that Mr.. Goldin was in
Paris, but that the letter would be delivered. A copy of the letter
appears below.
Hiroshima-Nagasaki Commemoration Committee, 4806 York Road,
Baltimore, MD
21212 Ph: 410-323-7200 Fax: 410-323-7292
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
June 11, 1999
We are here today to urge you to cancel the flyby of the Cassini
space probe, carrying 72 pounds of plutonium, as the dangers of
radioactive contamination outweigh the benefits. In fact, you
should abandon the use of radioactive material, ban all space-
based weaponry and cut all ties with the military.
Of course, you know accidents do happen in the space program.
Most recently, rockets failed to lift into proper orbits a "missile-
warning" satellite in April and an $800 million satellite in May. Last
August, a similar rocket carrying a spy satellite blew up shortly
after liftoff. These three failures cost taxpayers $3 billion. Adding
plutonium to the potential accident mix is terrifying.
Failure to cancel the flyby means Cassini is scheduled to threaten
Earth on Aug. 17, 1999. In the event of a miscalculation, electrical
failure, an impact from space debris or a solar storm, NASA could
lose control of the probe so that it may collide with Earth's
atmosphere. The probe could burn up like a meteorite and release
a breathable form of plutonium dioxide.
NASA has scheduled a series of space missions carrying
plutonium-powered generators in the coming years. The Air Force
is promoting nuclear power because it needs massive power
projection capabilities for space-based lasers and anti-satellite
weapons. NASA's future plutonium missions, as well
as the U.S. military's aim to "control space" and the Earth below
with space-based nuclear-powered weaponry, needs to be
confronted.
This military agenda is particularly troublesome, as it is a potential
violation of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty against weapons in
space. Most peace and environmental activists support a multi-
national exploration of space for the purpose of gathering and
sharing scientific knowledge. The 1967 Treaty declares that all
interplanetary bodies belong to the common good. So there should
be no more plans to circumvent international space law
in order to "exploit" space for a corporate elite. Following our
suggestions would enhance the prestige of the agency and
eliminate the perception that NASA is a pawn of the US Space
Command.
Your assistance in alleviating our concerns with the Cassini flyby
and the future of the space program would be graciously
appreciated. We would welcome a continued dialogue.
In peace,
Max Obuszewski, on behalf of the Hiroshima-Nagasaki
Commemoration Committee
_________
Always on-line reporting on health, environment, and sustainable society.
!EcoNews! Service: < http://www.ecologynews.com>
geri destefano & alfred webre mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
352-1917 West Fourth Avenue Tel:604-733-8134
Vancouver, BC V6J 1M7 Fax:604-733-8135
>>>>>>
Date sent: Sat, 12 Jun 1999 10:10:41 -0700
From: Craig DeForest <XXXXX>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Solar explosion / Cassini - Did NASA erase its
tracks?
Forwarded by: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date forwarded: Sat, 12 Jun 99 10:05:33 PDT
Forwarded to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Dear Geri,
It was with some alarm and not a little chagrin that I read your note
and Mitch Battros's coverage of the large solar event on 1 June 1999.
As the person who wrote the press release that the BBC picked up, I
can assure you that there was no cover-up on NASA's (or anyone's)
part. In fact, when we saw the event on the live telemetry feed at
the Chicago meeting of the American Astronomical Society, those of us
interested in public outreach were excited that we might be able to
predict an aurora in three days. We set to work immediately, chasing
down actual images of the disk of the Sun from observatories around
the world, to determine whether the coronal mass ejection was coming
toward or away from the Earth (the coronagraph images don't
distinguish; one has to examine the actual surface of the Sun to
determine whether an event is from the front face). We determined at
the meeting (independently of the NOAA Space Weather people, who had
already come to the same conclusion) that the event wasn't coming
toward the Earth, and hence might not be as exciting as we initially
thought -- in fact, I was surprised (and, admittedly, pleased) when
the BBC did decide to pick up the coverage anyway.
Though I'm writing to you from my personal email account, I must admit
that I am an "insider" to much of the solar work that's going on at
NASA: I operate one of the instruments aboard the SOHO spacecraft that
recorded the solar burst. (Note that the BBC incorrectly identified
the burst in their photo -- the bright, speckly "ray" emanating from
the Sun in their picture is in fact part of the telescope itself.)
Feel free to believe me or not -- but there is little or no
connection, at the operational and public relations level, between the
Cassini team and the solar physics and space weather organizations
within NASA. We SOHO people are busy enough deciding what to look at,
filing and disseminating data, and analysing our results to take part
in some vast conspiracy regarding Cassini.
Several groups have accused NASA, at different times, of harboring
large conspiracies -- some of the recent ones involved Hale-Bopp and
an alleged giant solar flare that would envelop the Earth. I get a
lot of personal chuckle value out of such things, because I can't
imagine any of the scientists I work with (and I work with the SOHO
operations team -- the people who collect solar data, operate the
instruments, and make the decisions about how to disseminate the images)
voluntarily working in secrecy. Getting scientists to work together is
like herding kittens: we're individualistic enough that it's hard to get
us to stick together even for something we believe in. The concept of
solar physicists actively trying to hide something we believed to be
dangerous -- well, it's laughable.
As far as "Sharon B."'s comment that the 10-day solar animation at
http://www.spaceweather.com/java/solar-anim.html
is missing June 1 -- I suspect that something broke in the automated
data pipeline over memorial day; we certainly were collecting data
then, and I notice that they are publicly available in the database.
I invite you or anyone else to visit the instrument sites at
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov and request data directly -- even large
collections of data are only modestly sized by today's standards, and
you can view them directly on your home computer with Photoshop or
other image manipulation software.
Because I don't design spacecraft for a living, I don't know how
vulnerable Cassini might be to a coronal mass ejection from the Sun.
I do know that deep-space probes are carefully designed with just that
type of disturbance in mind. SOHO, which is outside the Earth's
protective magnetic field, has weathered countless such events without
a hitch, as have the Voyager probes from the 1970s, the recent Venus
orbiter that mapped the surface of that planet, and innumerable other
bits of NASA hardware flying around the solar system.
For some background on myself: I consider myself an environmentalist.
I cycle to work; I follow with great interest and occasional activism
the follies of the BLM; I believe in minimal-impact living; I helped
found Dancing Rabbit, an non-profit organization devoted to
ecologically sustainable development. I hold a Ph. D. in applied
physics from Stanford University; I have experience in health physics,
radiation safety, and the risks of plutonium exposure. I am in a
position to calculate the potential effects of a plutonium release by
Cassini, and I am far less alarmed by them than I am by the unchecked
use of cyanide mining in the American west, or by Americans' tendency to
buy imported goods made in countries whose pollution laws are even more
lax than our own, or by dozens of other environmental issues that are
orders of magnitude more pressing.
Please feel free to forward this to Mitch Battros: I don't have his
email address, and I believe it addresses his plea for responses.
Warm regards,
Craig DeForest
SOHO/MDI Resident Observer
AAS/SPD Press Officer
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