If Cassini does make it up on the Titan IV, an even more dangerous event lies ahead. NASA says fatalities over a 50-year period could be 2,300. Three out of the 26 earlier US nuclear space missions have involved mishaps. Gofman has long linked that accident to a rise in lung cancer on earth. After the SNAP 9-A accident, NASA pioneered development of solar photovoltaic power for satellites.
Solar power can now substitute for plutonium on space probes.
The European Space Agency has developed new high-efficiency solar cells for space probes and intends to use solar power instead of plutonium to generate 500 watts of electricity on its Rosetta probe that is to go beyond the orbit of Jupiter and rendezvous with a comet. Such solar technology could be used to provide electricity on a redesigned Cassini probe. But NASA, under pressure from Lockheed Martin, the company that manufactures plutonium systems, and the US Department of Energy and its national nuclear laboratories, insists on sticking with atomic power on Cassini - and other planned space shots. Also, NASA seeks to stay in coordination with the US military which wants to deploy nuclear-powered weaponry in space. We're on a countdown to nuclear space disaster - on Cassini or the other atomic space missions.