NASA Seeks Public Views on Nuclear-Powered Pluto Mission

LOOKING BACK: An artist's view from New Horizon's looking back toward Pluto, Charon and the Sun. CREDIT:

CAPE CANAVERAL -- NASA is offering people a chance to comment tonight and Wednesday on a planned mission to Pluto that will carry nuclear fuel.

The New Horizons mission will use a plutonium-powered radioisotope thermoelectric generator for power in deep space, where sunlight isn't intense enough to run the spacecraft. It's like the generators that flew in the Cassini probe now at Saturn. In fact, it's Cassini's spare.

"RTGs have a proven track record and safety record," Kurt Lindstrom, NASA's executive for the mission, said in a press conference today at Kennedy Space Center.

Several safety reviews and opportunities for public comment remain before the launch, now planned for January 2006.

The agency has released a draft environmental impact statement. The public can comment on the statement and learn about the mission at the hearings at the Florida Solar Energy Center in Cocoa, at Brevard Community College, today at 6 p.m. and Wednesday at 1 p.m.

"We will not launch this mission unless it is safe to fly," Lindstrom said.

Ultimately, the mission must receive presidential approval.

Pluto is the last planet humans have not studied with a spacecraft. This probe will not only study Pluto and its moon, Charon, as it flies by, but will continue on to the mysterious ring of icy objects known as the Kuiper Belt.

New Horizons will get there sooner, with a chance to see more of the Kuiper Belt, if it launches in the early part of its Jan. 11-Feb. 14, 2006, launch window and can take advantage of a gravity assist from Jupiter.

Security problems at the Los Alamos National Laboratory halted production of plutonium, threatening the mission. But project scientist Hal Weaver, at Johns Hopkins' Applied Physics Laboratory, said the mission will get enough fuel to reach at least one Kuiper Belt object, even if it launches in a 2007 backup window.

Meeting the schedule has been challenging, said Orlando Figueroa, a deputy associate administrator in NASA's science directorate, but Lindstrom said they had a good chance of making the first window.

New Horizons will launch on a Lockheed Martin Atlas 5 rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

According to the draft environmental impact statement, individuals have less than a one in a million chance of getting cancer from a catastrophic accident.

There's a 93.8 percent chance of a successful launch, the statement says; a 5.8 percent chance of an accident with no release of radiological material; and 0.4 percent chance of a mishap with a radiological release.

Weaver said he's not a risk expert, but he's familiar with the study.

"I personally feel very comfortable that I'm going to be safe," he said. "I'm going to be there with my family at the launch site to watch New Horizons go off. And we live in a world of risks. I'm more concerned about teaching my 16-year-old how to drive and being in the car with him, a lot more concerned about that than the risks associated with the New Horizons launch."

You can find the draft Environmental Impact Statement and more information about the New Horizons mission to Pluto by clicking here.

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