The report "Cassini Titan IV / Centaur RTG Safety Databook", Report NAS3-0031, March 1997 was written to preempt the anti-Cassini luddites. This report covered every conceivable detail about the launch of Cassini and the possible safety implications of the RTGs. It is 977 pages long. No one could possibilty read this report from cover-to-cover. There's too much dry fiddly information about an obsolete launch system. The sole purpose of this tome was to provide NASA lawyers with something to wave around during the anti-Cassini litigation. I hate to think how much it cost the US taxpayer to produce this thing but I'm sure it was many millions of dollars. That was the real down side about the whole sorry business. Michio Kaku got some free publicity for his shitty books. Random environmentalists had their 15 seconds of fame on "CBS 60 Minutes" staring Dan Rather. Some two bit politicians got some face-time with the MSM. Unfortunately, at the end of the process, NASA got stuck with the bill for the tune of millions of dollars. That's money that could have been spent on space exploration rather than a 977 page door stop that no one will ever read.

Gary