Chris Vancil and I were having a discussion below about Cassini. This discussion is important enough to shift back up to the top.

Chris said the following:

"Re: Sorry wrong! Wanting to postpone some which had already been postponed does not constitute opposition. It would still fly. Get a clue. Please try reading your own citation, Gary."

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Here's my snappy come back:

I have the Cassini study final report and know some of the guys who did the work.

The final report was:

"Cassini Titan IV/Centuar RTG Safety Databook",
Contract NAS3-26555, DRL A060,
Report NAS3-00031

The report is 977 pages long and was written by some of America's finest engineers (Lockheed-Martin and NASA). I have never seen a document that more thoroughly describes a launch system in all its aspects. Their investigation was beyond comprehensive at considerable cost to the U.S. taxpayer. Some of the software used in the RTG study I have since incorporated in my own spacecraft design program. The safety measures used for Cassini were "heroic". There was no credible way this study could have been improved upon (977 pages borders on ridiculous). The Cassini mission was strongly constrained by celestial mechanics (it flew a VEEGA, Venus-Earth-Earth Gravity Assist trajectory). The moonbats wanted Casinni stopped no matter what due to their irrational fear of the plutonium RTGs. Delaying the launch was a thinly veiled attempt to force Cassini to miss its narror launch window and thus end up in the Smithsonian Museum. Everybody involved knew that was the hidden agenda including the moonbats (they had tried the same trick before on Galileo and almost succeeded).

Of the 100 members in the U.S. Senate only two senators were stupid enough to fall for the moonbat's ploy:

Barbara Boxer
John Kerry

Barbara Boxer fell for it because she's arguably the dumbest person in the Senate. What's Kerry's excuse?

Gary