Novice Plutonium DA

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Plutonium accidents are likely- they will infect everyperson with lethal cancer

Karl Grossman, professor of journalism at the State University of NewYork/College at Old Westbury for 32 years. He is a specialist in investigativereporting. He is the author of Cover Up: What You Are Not Supposed to Know

About Nuclear Power. He is the host of the nationally aired TV program,Enviro Close-Up, July 21, 2011,What Could Truly End the Space Program? ANuclear Disaster Overhead,https://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/07/21-5 //ZY

What is NASAs future now that Atlantis has landed and the shuttle programis over? If NASApersists in using nuclear power in space, the agencysfuture is threatened. Between November 25 and December 15 NASA plansto launch for use on Mars a rover fueled with 10.6 pounds of plutonium, moreplutonium than ever used on a rover. The mission has a huge cost: $2.5billion. But if there is an accident before the rover is well on its way toMars, and plutonium is released on Earth, its cost stands to be yet

more gargantuan . NASAs Final Environmental Impact Statement for what itcalls its Mars Science Laboratory Mission says that if plutonium is released onEarth, the cost could be as high as $1.5 billion to decontaminate each squaremile of mixed-use urban areas impacted. Whats the probability of anaccident releasing plutonium? The NASA document says theprobability of an accident with a release of plutonium is 1-in-220overall. If you knew your chance of not surviving an airplane flight-- or just a drive in a car -- was 1 in 220, would you take that trip? And isthis enormous risk necessary? In two weeks, therell be a NASA missiondemonstrating a clear alternative to atomic energy in space: solar power. OnAugust 5, NASA plans to launch a solar-powered space probe its named Junoto Jupiter. Theres no atomic energy involved, although NASA for decades has

insisted that nuclear power is necessary for space devices beyond the orbit ofMars. With Juno, NASA will be showing it had that wrong. At no point will Juno(or the other solar spacecrafts) be a threat to life on Earth. This includes Junoposing no danger when in 2013 it makes a flyby of Earth. Such flybys makinguse of Earths gravity to increase a spacecrafts velocity have constituteddangerous maneuvers when in recent years theyve involvedplutonium-powered space probes such as NASAs Galileo and Cassiniprobes. Curiosity is a return to nuclear danger. NASAs FinalEnvironmental Impact statement admits that a large swath ofEarth couldbe impacted by plutonium in an accident involving it. The documentssection on Impacts ofRadiological Releases says the affectedenvironment could include the regional area near the Cape Canaveral

Air Force Station and the global area. Launch area accidents wouldinitially release material into the regional area, definedto be within 62miles of the launch pad, says the document. This is an area from CapeCanaveral west to Orlando. But since some ofthe accidents result intherelease ofvery fine particles less than a micron in diameter, a portionof such releases could be transported beyond62 miles, it goes on.

These particles could becomewell-mixed in the troposphere -- theatmosphere five to nine miles high -- and have been assumed to potentially


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affect persons living within a latitude band from approximately 23-degreesnorth to 30-degrees north. Thats a swath through the Caribbean, acrossNorth Africa and the Mideast, then India and China Hawaii and other Pacificislands, and Mexico and southern Texas. Then, as the rocket carryingCuriosity up gains altitude, the impacts of an accident in whichplutonium is releasedwould be even broader. The plutonium could

affect people anywhere between 28-degrees north and 28-degrees southlatitude, says the NASA document. Thats a band around the mid-section ofthe Earth including much of South America, Africa and Australia. Dr. HelenCaldicott, president emeritus of Physicians for Social Responsibility, has longemphasized that a pound of plutonium if uniformly distributed couldhypothetically give a fatal dose of lung cancer to every person onEarth. A pound, even 10.6 pounds, could never be that uniformly distributed,of course. But an accident in which plutonium is released by a spacedevice as tiny particles falling to Earth maximizes its lethality. Amillionth of a gram of plutonium can be a fatal dose. The pathway ofgreatest concern is the breathing in plutonium particle . As the NASAEnvironmental Impact Statement puts it: Particles smaller than about 5

microns would be transported to and remain in the trachea, bronchi, ordeep lung regions. The plutonium particles would continuouslyirradiate lung tissue. A small fraction would be transported over timedirectly to the blood or to lymph nodes and then to the blood, itcontinues. Once plutonium has entered the blood via ingestion orinhalation, it would circulate and be deposited primarily in the liverand skeletal system. Also, says the document, some of the plutoniumwould migrate to the testes or ovaries.


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***AT: Congress renewed funding

Funding for plutonium was denied- any marginal funding

is insufficientJeffFoust, an aerospace analyst, journalist and publisher. He is the editorand publisher of The Space Review and has written for Astronomy Now and

The New Atlantis.[1] He has a bachelor's degree in geophysics from theCalifornia Institute of Technology and a Ph.D in planetary sciences from the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, September 2011, Planetaryexplorations radioactive decay, The Space Review,http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1937/1 //ZY

The simple solution, then, would be to restart domestic production ofplutonium-238. Yet, despite several years of efforts by the scientific

community, Congress has failed to providethe funding to do so, lessout of budget worries than out of a debate regarding who should pay for it.In the fiscal year 2012 budge t proposal submitted by the ObamaAdministration, NASA and DOE each requested $10 million to restartplutonium-238 production using DOE facilities. That alone would not besufficientto start producing the isotope: the2009NationalAcademies report estimated the total cost of restarting production at$150 million or more. Efforts to win funding for the program have beenmixed this year. House and Senate appropriators have included the $10million NASA requested; with the House in particular urging NASA to workexpeditiously with the Department of Energy to bring Pu-238 production backonline as quickly as possible while also developing technologies to make

more efficient use of the isotope. However, the same appropriationscommittees declined to provide the same funding to the DOE. TheSenate, in its report, offered no explanation for the decision not to fund theDOEs share of the restart work. House appropriators, though, offered theirrationale for denying funding for the project in their report: The Committeeremains concerned that the Administration continues to request equalfunding from NASA and the Department of Energy for a project that primarilybenefits NASA. The Committee provides no funds for this project, andencourages the Administration to devise a plan for this project that moreclosely aligns the costs paid by federal agencies with the benefits theyreceive. Unless that DOE funding is restored later in the budget processneither the full House nor the full Senate has taken up their

respective appropriations bills for either the DOE or NASAits quitelikely the restart of plutonium-238 production could be pushed backfurther , which could threaten the ambitions ofplanetary scientists whoalready have to cope with budget concerns for some of their high-priorityscience missions. In a worst-case scenario, mission s, particularly to theouter solar system, may have to be deferred regardless of theirimportance or available funding because of a lack of plutonium-238needed to power them.


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No funding for plutonium 238- current supplies areinsufficient

Space Politics, September 11, 2011, Senate energy bill includes no Pu-238 funding, http://www.spacepolitics.com/2011/09/11/senate-energy-bill-includes-no-pu-238-funding/ //ZY

The Senate Appropriations Committee passed this week its 2012energy and water appropriations bill, which includes funding for theDepartment of Energy (DOE). Senate appropriators, though, decided not tofund the administrations request for $15 million for DOE to restartproduction of plutonium-238 (Pu-238), an isotope used in radioisotopethermoelectric generators (RTGs) for NASA science missions. In the reportaccompanying the bill, the committee gave no reason for the lack of funding,simply stating, The Committee provides no funding for thePlutonium-238 Production Restart project.That move comes afterHouse appropriators similarly declined to fund Pu-238 production in its DOE

bill, although in that case appropriators said in their report that DOE shouldnot share the funding burden with NASA for a program that primarily aids thespace agency. The House did include Pu-238 funding for NASA inlegislation that the committee passed in July, although that alone may notbe sufficient for restarting production.


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AT: Others missions trigger

No new wasteful space exploration- Obama is cancelling

the missionsThe Washington times, 10/26/11, ZUBRIN: Obama readies to blastNASA, http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/oct/26/obama-readies-to-blast-nasa/ //ZY

Word has leaked out that in its new budget, the Obama administrationintends to terminateNASAs planetary exploration program. TheMars Science Lab Curiosity, being readied on the pad, will be launched, aswill the nearly completed small MAVEN orbiter scheduled for 2013 ,but that will be it. No further missions to anywhere are planned.After 2013, Americas amazing career ofplanetary exploration, which ranfrom the Mariner probes in the 1960s through the great Pioneer, Viking,Voyager, Pathfinder, MarsGlobalSurveyor, MarsOdyssey, Spirit, Opportunity,MarsReconnaissanceOrbiter, Galileo and Cassini missions, will simply end.Furthermore, the plan from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB)also leaves the space astronomy program adrift and headed fordestruction. The now-orbiting Kepler Telescope willbe turned off inmidmission, stopping it before it can complete its goal of findingother Earths. Even worse, the magnificent Webb Telescope, theagencys flagship, which promises fundamental breakthroughs in ourunderstanding of the laws of the universe, is not sufficiently funded toallow successful completion. This guarantees further costly delays,with the ensuing budgetary overruns leading inevitably to eventual

cancellation. The

administrations decision to derail planetaryexploration and space astronomy is shocking and portends thedestruction of the entire American space program. As an agency,NASA is a mixed bag. It includes a large bureaucracy and wasteful, pork-driven spending. But it also includes departments that are technically superband really deliver the goods. First and foremost among NASAs mostproductive divisions are the planetary exploration and space astronomyprograms. Kill those, and what is left will be indefensible. The ostensiblereason for the administrations decision to kill planetary explorationand space astronomy is budgetary discipline. Yet while federal spendinghas grown 40 percent since 2008, NASAs funding has remained virtually thesame. It is not NASA that is bankrupting America, but OMB. If the

administration needs to cut budgets, it should start with those of theregulatory agencies that are strangling the nations businesses rather thanNASA, which helps the economy through scientific discoveries, technologicalinnovation and the inspiration of youth to pursue careers in engineering.Furthermore, if there were a need to cut NASA, it would make more sense totrim almost anywhere else in the agency. Instead, the administrations goalseems to be to destroy the entire space program by hitting it in its most vitalparts.


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AT: NASA transitioning away

NASA is committed to plutonium

Bruce K. Gagnon, Coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons &Nuclear Power in Space, former State Coordinator of the Florida Coalition forPeace & Justice, Organizer of the Cancel Cassini Campaign (launched 72pounds of plutonium into space in 1997) that was featured on the TV program

60 Minutes, July 2011 NEXT PLUTONIUM SPACE LAUNCH SEThttp://www.opednews.com/articles/NEXT-PLUTONIUM-SPACE-LAUNC-by-Bruce-K-Gagnon-110702-669.html //ZY

Fifty years ago this week, on June 29, 1961, an electrical generatordrivenby nuclear energy was launched into space for the first time.NASA sadly appears committed to maintaining their dangerousalliance with the nuclear industry. Both entities viewspace as a newmarket for the deadly plutonium fuel. Back in 1997 we organized aninternational campaign against NASA and the Department of Energy's launchof 72 pounds of plutonium on the Cassini mission. A man by the name of AlanKohn volunteered to help us with that campaign. Alan had been theEmergency Preparedness Officer at NASA during the Galileo (1989) andUlysses (1990) plutonium launches at the space center in Florida. By the timeCassini was to be launched Alan had retired from NASA and felt free to speakout. He told the New York Times , just prior to the launch, that NASA had noplan to contain and clean-up after an accident on or near the launchpad that released plutonium into the environment. He said theoperating plan he had worked with during the two previous nuclear launcheswas a joke and was only intended to serve as a reassurance to the public.Alan told us that a long-time family friend, working in the White House, hadinformed him that more people contacted Washington opposing Cassini thanany other issue in U.S. history. While NASA maintains that they are"searching for the origins of life" on Mars, in reality they are mapping the redplanet and doing soil sampling which is all intended to serve the ultimategoal of establishing a nuclear powered mining colony there in the future. TheHaliburton Corporation, known for their connections to the Bush-Cheneyadministration and fraud in Iraq, has been working on a drilling mechanismfor Mars exploration for some time. The taxpayers are being asked onceagain to pay for nuclear missions that could endanger the life of all thepeople on the planet. As we saw in Louisiana, following the Hurricane Katrina

debacle, the federal government is not prepared to do disaster relief andclean-up. A plutonium release over Florida could devastate a 60-mile radius -from the space center to Disney World. It would only take one pound ofplutonium-238 released as dust in the atmosphere to give everyone onthe Earth a lethal dose of the toxic fuel. Have we not learned anythingfrom Chernobyl and Fukushima? We don't need to be launching nukes intospace. It's not a gamble we can afford to take.


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AT: Occurs in nature

No it doesnt

The Engineer, 15 August 2011, Power pack: nuclear power in space,http://www.theengineer.co.uk/in-depth/analysis/power-pack-nuclear-power-in-space/1009652.article //ZY

Pu-238 does not occur in nature, he explained. Its a by-product of thenuclear weapons industry and its made by taking neptunium-237from spent nuclear fuel, converting it into a target and placing itinto a high-flux reactor where it captures neutrons. That producesPu-238, which you then have to separate chemically. But thatproduction route is now closed and to reopen it would cost many hundreds ofmillions of pounds. In fact, since 1993, all of the Pu-238 used in the US hasbeen bought from Russia.


11/25

AT: Alts general

Stopgaps

JeffFoust, an aerospace analyst, journalist and publisher. He is the editorand publisher of The Space Review and has written for Astronomy Now and

The New Atlantis.[1] He has a bachelor's degree in geophysics from theCalifornia Institute of Technology and a Ph.D in planetary sciences from the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, September 2011, Planetaryexplorations radioactive decay, The Space Review,http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1937/1 //ZY

Such measures, though, are only stopgaps,and not long-termsolutions, to the problem offinding power sources for planetarymissionsthat cant effectively use solar power. Ultimately the supplyof plutonium-238 in both the US and Russia will be exhausted, andunless the federal government restarts production, the lack of thatisotope will effectively close off many options for exploration of thesolar system. A decision to wait to a better time to fund activitiesrequired to restart domestic plutonium production is just a different way ofending the program, eliminating future science missions dependent onthis technology for implementation, the planetary sciences decadalsurvey report concluded. In other words, theres no time like the presentto restart production, lest the options for future planetary missions,like radioactive isotopes, decay.


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Link XTN

Any New space exploration requires plutonium 238 use

The Atlantic, SEP 12 2011, The $15 Million Budget Battle That May EndOuter Space, http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/09/the-15-million-budget-battle-that-may-end-outer-solar-system-exploration/244925/ //ZY

Then there is the bureaucratic mess that actually defines the U.S. spaceprogram and its politics. Space Politics reports that the Senate energyappropriations bill that just passed does not include the $15 millionneeded for the production of Plutonium 238. Tiny amounts of theisotope used to power outer solar system missions through their radioisotopeelectric generators. The isotope has been made by the Department of

Energy but largely used by NASA. In cutting its funding from the DOEbudget, the House noted that problem, but the Senate didn't even do that.Either way, Pu-238 isn't getting made and that could spell trouble formissions to the outer reaches of our solar system . Missions likeCassini-Huygens, which has delivered stunning images of Saturn and Voyager1, which represents humanity's farthest push into outer space, useradioisotope generators. Just to put the $15 million in perspective. The 2010Federal budget was about $3,500 thousand million. A committee that lookedat possible outer solar system missions said it was "alarmed" at the lack ofplutonium production. "Without a restart of plutonium-238 production,it will be impossible for the U nited S tates, or any other country, toconduct certain important types of planetary missions after thisdecade," their final report warned.


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AT: No link

That means your aff cant be launched- vote neg on

presumptionNPR, September 28, 2009, Plutonium Shortage Could Stall SpaceExploration, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113223613 //ZY

But as an appropriations bill made its way through Congress over thesummer, the Senate knocked the amount to zero. And the House lowered itto just $10 million. The White House issued a "statement ofadministration policy" in July urging Congress to give the requestedfunds for restarting domestic production, saying it's "essential" forplanned NASA missions as well as national security applications.Planetary scientists can now only wait to see what happens. Less moneywould mean more delay. "It really is the kind of thing where people willwake up 10 years from now and say, 'What were they thinking?' " says AlanStern, a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute inColorado and chief scientist for NASA's New Horizons probe. Rightnow, the New Horizons spacecraft is out past Saturn, headed to Pluto. "Ourmission is a good example," Stern says. "We are going to Pluto in the Kuiperbelt, where the sunlight is a thousand times lower and the temperatures areclose to absolute zero." He says this mission would simply not bepossible without plutonium-238.


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Impact OV

Plutonium use endangers everyone

Karl Grossman, professor of journalism at the State University of NewYork/College at Old Westbury for 32 years. He is a specialist in investigativereporting. He is the author of Cover Up: What You Are Not Supposed to KnowAbout Nuclear Power. He is the host of the nationally aired TV program,

Enviro Close-Up, July 21, 2011,What Could Truly End the Space Program? ANuclear Disaster Overhead,https://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/07/21-5 //ZY

Involved in challenging the mission is the Global Network Against Weapons &Nuclear Power in Space (www.space4peace.org). Bruce Gagnon, coordinatorof the Maine-based organization, says that NASA sadly appearscommitted to maintaining their dangerous alliance withthe nuclearindustry. Both entities view space as a new market for the deadlyplutonium fuel. Says Gagnon: The taxpayers are being asked onceagain to pay for nuclear missions that could endanger the life of allthe people on the planetHave we not learned anything fromChernobyl and Fukushima? We dont need to be launching nukes intospace. Its not a gamble we can afford to take.


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Impact- Lung cancer

Plutonium accidents are likely- they will infect every

person with lethal cancerKarl Grossman, professor of journalism at the State University of New

York/College at Old Westbury for 32 years. He is a specialist in investigativereporting. He is the author of Cover Up: What You Are Not Supposed to KnowAbout Nuclear Power. He is the host of the nationally aired TV program,


What is NASAs future now that Atlantis has landed and the shuttle programis over? If NASApersists in using nuclear power in space, the agencys

future is threatened. Between November 25 and December 15 NASA plansto launch for use on Mars a rover fueled with 10.6 pounds of plutonium, moreplutonium than ever used on a rover. The mission has a huge cost: $2.5billion. But if there is an accident before the rover is well on its way toMars, and plutonium is released on Earth, its cost stands to be yetmore gargantuan. NASAs Final Environmental Impact Statement for what itcalls its Mars Science Laboratory Mission says that if plutonium is released onEarth, the cost could be as high as $1.5 billion to decontaminate each squaremile of mixed-use urban areas impacted. Whats the probability of anaccident releasing plutonium? The NASA document says theprobability of an accident with a release of plutonium is 1-in-220overall. If you knew your chance of not surviving an airplane flight

-- or just a drive in a car -- was 1 in 220, would you take that trip? And isthis enormous risk necessary? In two weeks, therell be a NASA missiondemonstrating a clear alternative to atomic energy in space: solar power. OnAugust 5, NASA plans to launch a solar-powered space probe its named Junoto Jupiter. Theres no atomic energy involved, although NASA for decades hasinsisted that nuclear power is necessary for space devices beyond the orbit ofMars. With Juno, NASA will be showing it had that wrong. At no point will Juno(or the other solar spacecrafts) be a threat to life on Earth. This includes Junoposing no danger when in 2013 it makes a flyby of Earth. Such flybys makinguse of Earths gravity to increase a spacecrafts velocity have constituteddangerous maneuvers when in recent years theyve involved plutonium-powered space probessuch as NASAs Galileo and Cassini probes.

Curiosity is a return to nuclear danger. NASAs Final EnvironmentalImpact statement admits that a large swath ofEarth could be impacted byplutonium in an accident involving it. The documents section onImpacts ofRadiological Releases says the affected environmentcould include the regional area near the Cape Canaveral Air ForceStation and the global area. Launch area accidents would initially releasematerial into the regional area, definedto be within 62 miles of the launchpad, says the document. This is an area from Cape Canaveral west toOrlando. But since some ofthe accidents result inthe release ofvery


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fine particles less than a micron in diameter, a portion of such releasescould be transported beyond62 miles, it goes on. These particlescould becomewell-mixed in the troposphere -- the atmosphere five tonine miles high -- and have been assumed to potentially affect persons livingwithin a latitude band from approximately 23-degrees north to 30-degreesnorth. Thats a swath through the Caribbean, across North Africa and the

Mideast, then India and China Hawaii and other Pacific islands, and Mexicoand southern Texas. Then, as the rocket carrying Curiosity up gainsaltitude, the impacts of an accident in which plutonium is releasedwould be even broader. The plutonium could affect people anywherebetween 28-degrees north and 28-degrees south latitude, says the NASAdocument. Thats a band around the mid-section of the Earth including muchof South America, Africa and Australia. Dr. Helen Caldicott, presidentemeritus of Physicians for Social Responsibility, has long emphasized that apound of plutonium if uniformly distributed could hypothetically givea fatal dose of lung cancer to every person on Earth. A pound, even10.6 pounds, could never be that uniformly distributed, of course. But anaccident in which plutonium is released by a space device as tiny

particles falling to Earth maximizes its lethality. A millionth of agram ofplutonium can be a fatal dose. The pathway ofgreatestconcern is the breathing in plutonium particle. As the NASAEnvironmental Impact Statement puts it: Particles smaller than about 5microns would be transported to and remain in the trachea, bronchi, ordeep lung regions. The plutonium particles would continuouslyirradiate lung tissue. A small fraction would be transported over timedirectly to the blood or to lymph nodes and then to the blood, itcontinues. Once plutonium has entered the blood via ingestion orinhalation, it would circulate and be deposited primarily in the liverand skeletal system. Also, says the document, some of the plutoniumwould migrate to the testes or ovaries.


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Impact- Agriculture

Plutonium use destroys ag

Karl Grossman, professor of journalism at the State University of NewYork/College at Old Westbury for 32 years. He is a specialist in investigativereporting. He is the author of Cover Up: What You Are Not Supposed to KnowAbout Nuclear Power. He is the host of the nationally aired TV program,


The cost of decontamination of areas affected by the plutonium couldbe, according to the NASA statement, $267 million for each square mileof farmland, $478 million for each square mile of forests and $1.5 billion foreach square mile of mixed-use urban areas. The NASA document listssecondary social costs associated with the decontamination andmitigation activities as: Temporary or longer term relocation of residents;temporary or longer term loss of employment; destruction or quarantine ofagricultural products including citrus crops; land use restrictionswhich could affect real estate values, tourism and recreational activities;restriction or bands on commercial fishing; and public health effects andmedical care.


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Impact- Science Military

Plutonium use promotes a dangerous intersection

between science and military that incites violenceKarl Grossman, professor of journalism at the State University of New



As to why the use of a plutonium-powered rover on Mars -- considering thatNASA has successfully used solar-powered rovers on Mars -- the NASA

Environmental Impact Statement says that a solar-powered roverwouldnot be capable of operating over the full range of scientifically desirablelanding site latitudes on this mission. Theres more to it. For many decadesthere has been a marriage of nuclear power and space at NASA. Theuse of nuclear power on space missions has been heavily promotedby the U.S. Department of Energy and its predecessor agency, the U.S.Atomic Energy Commission, and the many DOE (previously AEC) nationallaboratories including Los Alamos and Oak Ridge. This provides workfor these government entities. Also, the manufacturers of nuclear-poweredspace devices General Electric was a pioneers in this have pushed theirproducts. Further, NASA has sought to coordinate its activities with theU.S. military. The military for decades has planned for the

deployment ofnuclear-powered weapons in space. Personifying theNASA-military connection now is NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, aformer NASA astronaut and Marine Corps major general. Appointed byPresident Barack Obama, he is a booster of radioisotope thermoelectricgenerators as well as rockets using nuclear power for propulsion. The U.S.has spent billions of dollars through the years on such rockets but none haveever taken off and the programs have all ended up cancelled largely out ofconcern about a nuclear-powered rocket blowing up on launch or falling backto Earth. Ace Hoffman of Carlsbad, California speaks of todays nuclearNASA and a closed society of dangerous, closed-mindedscientists who are hoodwinking the American public and who areguilty of premeditated random murder. He adds: The media has a duty

to learn the truth rather than parrot NASAs blanketly-false assertions.


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Privileging the military-science complex - appliesmilitaristic spatialization to the galaxy in an attemptto control the uncontrollable. This sparks adisciplinary attempt to control the global populationin the name of planetary survival.

Felicity Mellor, Lecturer in Science Communication at Imperial CollegeLondon, research interests include the popularization of physics, therepresentation of science in the media, and the role of narrative within

science, 2007, Colliding Worlds : Asteroid Research and the Legitimizationof War in Space Social Studies of Science 2007 37: 499, sagepub // vkoneru

The asteroid impact threat was thus articulated within a narrative contextthat was closely aligned to science fiction and was shared by both civilianscientists and defence experts. As Veronica Hollinger (2000: 21617) hasnoted, traditional science fiction is driven by an Aristotelian plotcharacterized by a valorisation of the logic of cause and effect. Impactnarratives conformed to this traditional narrative logic: asteroids and

scientists act by causing a series of events to unfold, from theapproach of an asteroid and recognition of the threat throughattempts at technological mitigation to resolution in salvation.These narratives configured asteroids as acting agents in human affairsand brought to asteroid science a structure in which human agents (and their technological proxies) solve the problem posed in the narrativeand in so doing achieve closure. Allusions to impact narratives implied adirection and human-centredness to events that, once the narratives hadbeen evoked, could not easily be suppressed. Despite their attempts todistance themselves from the weapons scientists, the civilian scientistsexperienced a narrative imperative that drew them towards the sametechnologized ends as those promoting SDI. A sense of narrative agency was

evoked even in texts that were not primarily narratival. Crucially, asteroidswere no longer seen as signifiers of the mathematically exactingNewtonian system, distant objects moving through the emptybackdrop of space. Rather, they were configured as proximate beasts,acting subjects that could turn against humanity at any moment.

Thus in their many popular books on the subject, the scientists describedasteroids as belonging to a menagerie or a cosmic zoo (Steel, 2000a: 120);they were menacing (Kring, 2000: 171) and had teeth (Clube & Napier,1990: 154); they were global killers (Lewis, 1997: 209) that could unleashferocious assaults (Steel, 1995: 247) on the Earth; they were the enemy(Steel, 2000a: 153). Likewise, in their paper in Nature, Chapman & Morrison(1994: 33) stated that Earth resides in a swarm of asteroids. The

construction of asteroids as the enemy was accompanied by a range of othermilitaristic metaphors. In the popular books, asteroids became missiles,pieces of ordnance or stealth weapons (Lewis, 1997: 37), which bombardthe Earth with a death-dealing fusillade (Clube & Napier, 1990: 7). In atechnical paper, too, they were construed as astral assailant[s] (Simonenkoet al., 1994: 929). Where the military and the politicians talked ofrogue states , 27 the scientists talked of rogue asteroids (Steel,1995; Ailor, 2004: 3). This analogy was further rein forced by theconstruction of scenarios in which a small impact might be mistaken


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for the detonation of a nuclear warhead . One technical paper speculatedon what would have happened during the first Gulf War if an atmosphericexplosion that had been caused by a meteor burning up over the Pacific hadactually occurred over Baghdad or Israel (Tagliaferri et al., 1994). The authorssuggested that such an event would have been mistaken for a missiledetonation by the opposing state. In such scenarios, the actions of

interplanetary bodies were not just compared with those ofroguestates but came to be identified with them. With the swarming asteroidsfilling space, space itself was also resignified. What had been anabstract mathematical space became a narrative place, the locationwhere particular and contingent events occurred. Although thescientists continued to appeal to the predictability of celestial dynamics itwas this that would enable a survey of near-Earth objects to identify any thatmight pose a threat they also noted that chaotic processes disturbed theorbits of comets and also, to a lesser degree, asteroids (for example,

Yeomans & Chodas, 1994; Milani et al., 2000). The inherentunpredictability of the orbits was enhanced by the current state ofscientific uncertainty. These chaotic and uncertain processes were

projected onto space itself, construed as a place of random violence.In the popular books, the Solar System became a dangerous cosmicneighbourhood (Sumners & Allen, 2000b: 3), a capricious, violent place(Verschuur, 1996: 217), a place of mindless violence (Verschuur, 1996: 18)and wanton destruction (Levy, 1998: 13). Even in a peer-reviewed paper,Chapman (2004: 1) described space as a cosmic shooting gallery. Despitethe agency attributed to the asteroids themselves, in the narratives oftechnological salvation it was the human agents, acting through newtechnologies, who moved the narratives forward. Narrative progression wasthus generated through an assumption of technological progress. Throughtechnology, humans intervene in space and become agents ofcosmic events. The scientists promotion of the impact threat sharedthis assumption of technological progress. Like the US Air Force study,their technical papers on mitigation systems considered speculativetechnologies such as solar sails and mass drivers as well as more establishedexplosive technologies (for example, Ahrens & Harris, 1992; Melosh &Nemchinov, 1993; Ivashkin & Smirnov, 1995; Gritzner & Kahle, 2004). Eventhose scientists who warned that it was too early to draw up detailedblueprints of interception technologies accepted the narratival implicationthat there was a problem that needed addressing, that the problem could beaddressed by human action, and that this action would involve atechnological solution. Technology, in this picture, was configured asinherently progressive. As Morrison & Teller (1994: 1137) put it: Thedevelopment of technology in the past few centuries has been towardsincreasing understanding and control of natural forces in an effort to improvehuman life. Those scientists who argued against the immediate developmentof mitigation technology shared with its proponents a belief in the inexorableprogress of technology. Future generations, they argued, would be betterequipped than we are at the moment to meet the technological challenge ofan impacting asteroid (for example, Ahrens & Harris, 1992). In contrast totraditional astronomical systems, which passively watched the skies, asteroiddetection systems were to be surveillance systems that actively hunted the


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skies for objects of human import. The Spaceguard Survey was predicated ona will to action in a way in which the earlier Spacewatch Survey was not.Similarly, when it fired its impactor at Comet Tempel 1, NASAs Deep Impactmission took a far more active intervention in space than did earliergenerations of probes. This was not far from Edward Tellers call forexperimentation with near-Earth objects to test defence technologies

(Tedeschi & Teller, 1994; Teller, 1995), an idea dismissed at the time asextreme by some civilian scientists (Chapman, 1998). Likewise, one of therecommendations of the 2004 Planetary Defense Conference was thatdeflection techniques should be demonstrated on an actual asteroid (Ailor,2004: 5). 28 The technologization of space promoted in both the fictionalworks and the scientists technical proposals, also formed an integral partof the imagery and rhetoric that surrounded SDI, as its detractorshighlighted when they re-named the project Star Wars. SDI wasalways premised on a vision of space as a technologized theatre of war. Inthe hands of a technoenthusiast such as Edward Teller, SDI was configured asa space-based technological extravaganza with few limits. 29 In SDI, as inasteroid research and science fiction, space became a dynamic arena

through which our technologies would move, in which our weapons would beplaced, and across which our wars were to be waged. 30 As discussed in theintroduction to this paper, narrative is an inherently teleological form.In conventional narratives, the action is moved towards closure bythe heroes of the story. In the impact narratives, the heroes aretechnological heroes set the task of saving the world . By drawing on thesenarratives and following the call for human agency inherent in thenarrative structure, the scientists implicitly accepted this role as anecessary one. Having shifted apocalypse from the realm of nuclearpolitics to that of natural science, the impact-threat scientists were ableto position themselves as heroes who se combined far-sightednessand technological know-how would save us all. Emphasizing the role ofthe unacknowledged hero in a foreword to a volume of conferenceproceedings, astronomer Tom Gehrels (2002: xiii) claimed: There is a beautyalso in hazards, because we are taking care of them. We are working tosafeguard our planet, even if the world does not seem to want to be saved.In a paper in another volume of conference proceedings, astrophysicistEugene Levy was even more explicit about the scientists expanded role: Inthe arms race, the motivating dynamic was a political one. A dynamicin which scientists and engineers provided the technical tools, but, as agroup, brought no special and unique wisdom to the table in making

judgements about what to do. In the present case, the dynamic isdifferent. The adversary is not another nation; the calculus is not one ofpolitical fears, anxieties, and motivations, for which we scientists have nospecial expertise. Rather the adversary is the physical world. Inassessing this adversary, we scientists have special and unique expertise.(Levy, 1994: 7; italics in original) Eclipsing the political dimension of theimpact threat with their appeals to the natural, the scientistsappropriated for themselves a heroic role. This tech nological herowas a moral hero he would warn us of the danger and save usdespite ourselves. Thus the scientists frequently quoted RepresentativeGeorge Browns opening statement to a Congressional hearing when he


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Impact- Accidents

Plutonium use risks accidents, lung cancer and nuclear

theftKarl Grossman, professor of journalism at the State University of New



Accidents have happened in the U.S. space nuclear program. Of the26 space missionsthat have used plutonium which are listed in the

NASA Environmental Impact Statement for the Mars Science LaboratoryMission, three underwent accident causing, admits the document. Theworst occurred in 1964 and involved, it notes, the SNAP-9A plutoniumsystem aboard a satellite that failed to achieve orbitand dropped toEarth, disintegrating as it fell. The 2.1 pounds of plutonium fueldispersed widely over the Earth and Dr. John Gofman, professor ofmedical physics at the University of California at Berkeley, long linkedthis accident to an increase in global lung cancer. With the SNAP-9Aaccident, NASA switched to solar energy on satellites. Now all satellites andthe International Space Station are solar-powered. There was a near-missinvolving a nuclear disaster and a space shuttle. The ill-fated Challengersnext mission in 1986 was to loft a plutonium-powered space probe. The NASA

Environmental Impact Statement includes comments from people andorganizations some highly critical of a plutonium-powered Mars ScienceLaboratory Mission. Leah Karpen of Asheville, North Carolina says: Everyexpansion of plutonium research,development and transportation ofthis deadly material increases the risk of nuclear accident or theft . Inaddition, plutonium production is expensive and diverts resourcesfrom the more important social needs of our society today, and in thefuture. She urges NASA to reconsider the use of nuclear and go with solarinstead.


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Impact- Turns Econ

Engineering plutonium would trigger wasteful spending

NPR, September 28, 2009, Plutonium Shortage Could Stall SpaceExploration, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113223613 //ZY

NASA could still explore places close enough to the sun for solar power towork. But for going far out into space, there is no substitute for plutonium-238, because of its unique properties. "There isn't any other option," saysMcNutt, who was co-chairman of a National Research Council committee thatreleased a report on this issue in May. That report said the shortage hasalready forced NASA to delay some missions and limit others . Andeven if the Department of Energy restarts production now, it wouldstill take about eight years to ramp up to making the 11 pounds or

so needed by NASA each year.Restarting production would beexpensive, the report said likely in excess of $150 million butunless action is taken, NASA could find itself without needed supplies adecade from now.

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