Peace Talk — Winter 2005-06

The Quarterly Newsletter of Peace Action Maine
Letters

Dear Friends:

I write to urge your immediate financial support for a project the Global Network Against Nuclear Weapons in Space is now undertaking. NASA plans to launch 25 pounds of highly-toxic plutonium from Florida in January, 2006 on a New Horizons space probe to the planet Pluto. In NASA’s Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the New Horizons Mission they say that the plutonium to be used will be a mixture of pu-238 and pu-239. The pu-239 has a half life of several hundred thousands of years. The Nagasaki bomb dropped by the U.S. at the end of World War II used pu-239.

NASA acknowledges that in a deadly launch accident, prevailing winds could carry the plutonium over a 60-mile radius. In such a worst case scenario, says NASA, clean-up costs would range from $241 million to $1.3 billion per square mile. In the 1997 Cassini launch, NASA acknowledged that it would have to remove all the people, buildings, vegetation, animals, and the top half inch of soil in the contaminated area after such an accident. Central Florida would be a nuclear wasteland. One thing we have learned over the years is that space technology can and does fail.

The Global Network is now arranging to have op-ed pieces placed in several key newspapers in the region. We are also working with members of the Florida Coalition for Peace & Justice to organize a space center protest just prior to the January 11 launch. But we’d also like to do something more.

The Global Network would like to purchase three half-page advertisements in the Florida Today newspaper in the weeks prior to the launch. We have determined that the advertisements would cost us $2,800. They would allow us to share our deep concerns with thousands of families throughout the space coast region. In the advertisement we’d place the map, right out of NASA’s EIS, that illustrates the 60-mile “potentially affected area” surrounding the space center that could be contaminated by a launch accident. In addition, the ad would allow us to give our unfiltered reasons for opposing nuclear power in space.

We hope you will help us raise awareness and debate in Central Florida by donating today to this special fund to place advertisements in the newspaper. Your gift will help us raise the level of discussion about launching deadly plutonium into space. To make a contribution with your credit card just go to our web site home page and scroll down to the red Donate Now! button.

Thank you for your support.

Bruce Gagnon, Coordinator

 
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