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When 60 minutes of hysteria almost shot down a NASA mission to Saturn
NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute via Getty Few obstacles could have been worse. For a spacecraft to reach the Jovian system with enough speed to eventually reach an orbit around Europe, it had to go from a powerful rocket (which NASA lacks, which limits spacecraft to the deployment of a spacecraft) or absurd light be (which were the required radiation weapons) made impossible). JPL engineers hastily ejected written equations into chalk before driving fists against blackboards. Nothing for NASA was ever free … except for gravity assistance. Usually, the agency can compensate for the low speed of heavy spacecraft by taking indirect flight paths and using planets encountered en route to push the robotic pilgrim outward, inward, or forward. Because the physical laws are immutable, and the striking numbers are known, NASA’s orbital dynamics can do this all day, dropping the numbers to spacecraft precisely, one planet to the next: free propulsion of Isaac Newton. It was incomparably the best bargain in exploring space. But when television back-to-back journalism got involved, everything got complicated. In 1997, while waiting in Cape Canaveral for the uplift, the Cassini mission was suddenly plagued by political protests. Cassini transported three thermal electrical generators by radioisotope, driven by the decay of plutonium 238. The plutonium was not of the Back to the Future variety – a disturbing drop of Scary Substance in a homemade flood capacitor – but in ‘ stored a ceramic storage. mold, wrapped in iridium, and caked in graphite. It could not corrode, or be destroyed by heat, evaporate, or if an aerosol decomposes or dissolves in water. It was made to withstand not only the explosion of the rocket it carries, but even a catastrophic entry into the earth’s atmosphere. Because it could not evaporate in a state of disaster, no one would accidentally inhale it and develop superpowers or extra attachments. In fact, it is designed so that you could even eat the stuff. The human body could not absorb it. NASA’s Mars 2020 mission could shake our world But 10 days before three and a half million pounds of rocket pressure lay inches between Cassini and Earth, a much smaller number – 60, just like in 60 minutes – NASA almost nailed to the ground. The CBS TV newscast aired a feature on the soon-to-be-launched Saturn spacecraft, Steve Kroft, in the segment. The correspondent’s opening line: “On the thirteenth of October a Titan IV rocket will rise from Cape Canaveral carrying seventy-two pounds of deadly plutonium; in theory at least enough plutonium to give every man, woman and child a fatal dose on earth, several times. “And there it only gets worse. Cassini was an afterthought in the story, and interviews of experts were interspersed with comments from … non-experts, to be friendly, but very well-spoken non-experts, whose contribution – the generous! —Excluded lines such as: “What gives anyone, including the federal government, the right to risk the death or injury of the population just for the sake of space exploration?” The segment contains a plutonium expert from the Department of Energy who bluntly says that even though the rocket, spacecraft and graphite-sealed, iridium-wrapped, ceramic plutonium blew up on the launch site, it was literally impossible for the debris to do so. what protesters said it would do. But just to be balanced, Kroft’s menagerie of doomsday prophets described in clear detail what plutonium – not in the form used by NASA – can safely sprinkle on your breakfast cereal, because you could do it to the human again. body. . One of the highlights: “it can cause lung cancer” and “you could have numbers like 100,000 or more people developing lung cancer” and “if there is such an explosion, you can kiss Florida goodbye.” Kroft even hired a former NASA employee (‘He’s not a scientist or an engineer,’ Kroft admitted, ‘but …’) to lament his role in publicly endangering lives for frivolities such as the exploration of space. “I feel guilty, to be honest,” lamented the penitent inner circle. To conclude the agreement, Kroft interrupted the story with an interview from Western Huntress, head of NASA’s planetary program, which led to the successful landing of Mars Pathfinder for only months. earlier. “It comes from your own statement for the impact on the environment,” Kroft told Huntress – the tone of the host is firm but lovely, his face hard but somehow benevolent. “I want to read a few things out of it.” Huntress was a pioneer in the study of interstellar clouds and one of the world’s leading experts in planetary exploration, but he was not exactly tabloid TV material, and after the cavalcade of activists arguing compellingly and without interruption, seemed as if he had less confidence in his answers. Kroft quoted: ‘If there is an accident where it speaks, quote,’ removal and disposal of all vegetation in infected areas, demolition of some or all structures and relocation of the affected persons permanent population. “If there was such an accident,” Huntress said accurately but helplessly. Kroft replied, ‘I mean, it sounds pretty drastic …’ and Kroft waited patiently for Huntress, in possession of ropes needed to hang himself. , to fill the silence, which 60-minute interviews always did, and he did and did. ‘Well, the – what they’re probably talking about – is the damage on the site, near the – near – near the launch pad because th it’s clear that, when one of these things passes, a lot of damage is near the launch site. ‘And after Huntress danced and trampled – this man did not even know what his own official report of Armageddon said! – and finally swaying From the gallows, well-honed judges followed up and explained exactly how life as we characteristically came to an end, kissing your babies tonight as we make foolish pursuits to conquer the cosmos – Saturn! This senseless mission to a gas giant, whatever that means, will make mutated survivors fight for the last can of candy looted by store shelves. Worse, Cassini would make a second turn to the peaceful people on planet Earth! If it did not inflate during launch, it would follow a VVEJGA orbit to increase its path to Saturn: that is, two swings through Venus (V, V), and then he would play chicken with the earth, and if something went wrong … (but if it goes well, off the ground) [E] to Jupiter [J] for a gravity aid [GA]). The U.S. Air Force’s security police form a line to stop protesters protesting against the planned Cassini nuclear-powered spacecraft in front of the security fence on October 4, 1997 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The Cassini is a scientific spacecraft that will travel to Saturn in five years to orbit the planet and deploy a probe to the surface. Roberto Schmidt / AFP via Getty The Clinton administration really did not have time for this, but dutifully picked up the panicked letters and optics of protesters grabbing concertina top-chain fences on Cape Canaveral’s perimeter, while police inside set up an armor and looked silently with riotous shields, just waiting to – what? Open fire? Fiery sticks? NASA nevertheless continued its reckless rocket explosion that would probably only cause cockroaches to crawl through the earth (or whatever the future species would call this planet), and things were good, as they had been before. But the message from headquarters to those submitting future space missions: if you need to launch radioactive material, do not plan orbits to take the spacecraft back to Earth for gravity assistance. No one needs the headache, which has meant for Karla and his company years of discussions about potential compromises for the Europa Orbiter mission, as it is called. They analyzed other orbits, other launch vehicles – anything to gain more mass for a suitable scientific return. What hardware do you make ‘radhard’ – impermeable to radiation (but expensive) – on the contrary, it simply turns into ‘dumb mass’, ie large blocks of cheap protective protection? What was the absolute smallest scientific payload possible? Eventually, they found a relatively happy medium: a spacecraft that could launch directly and reach the minimum science to make a European expedition worthwhile, and NASA loved it, and then doubled the cost, and in 1999 Ed Weiler shoots it dead. Just like that. From the MISSION, or: how a disciple of Carl Sagan, an ex-motocross racer, a congressman from the Texas Tea Party, the world’s worst typewriter saleswoman, California mountaineers, and an anonymous NASA official with Mars war then went, survived an uprising on Saturn, traded blows with Washington and stole a ride on an Alabama moon rocket to send a space robot to Jupiter in search of Eden’s second garden at the bottom of a strange ocean inside an ice world called Europe (A True Story) by David W. Brown. Copyright © 2021 by David W. Brown. From Custom House, a series of books by William Morrow / HarperCollins Publishers. Reprint with permission. Read more at The Daily Beast. Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now! Daily membership of the beast: Beast Inside goes deeper into the stories that matter to you. Learn more.