Abstract

NASA nuclear roulette

This article presents views of Helen Caldicott, a physician well known for her opposition to nuclear power and Alan Kohn, retired National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) official on the NASA plans to launch its Cassini mission to Saturn. According to Caldicott, the Cassini mission threatens the health of millions of people. Plutonium is so toxic that one pound distributed around the Earth in particles small enough to be inhaled could induce lung cancer in every person on the planet. Plutonium can also cause bone cancer, leukemia and liver cancer. In pregnant women it crosses the placenta to damage the developing embryo and in men it lodges in the testicles, where it can induce cancer and mutate genes responsible for future generations.