re: Cassini versus Kerry and the moonbats
Much of the opposition to Cassini was from environmentalists operating on what can only be described as religious reasoning. Their statistics on the effects of plutonium in the enviroment were, frankly, nuts, citing billions of lethal doses from about 70 lbs. of plutonium.
When dealing with nuclear opponents, you have to make sure you aren't talking to the ones who stopped using reason years ago. I suspect most of the PhDs mentioned by Chris below aren't in the sciences.
Are people aware that there is already an estimate 4.3 metric tons of plutonium in the environment right now, most from nuclear testing? Oddly, most of us are still alive.