...but it's up to ModBob to decide whether to act. It's also up to ModBob to decided whether RL was out of line...an interesting metaphysical question, eh what? ;-)...

What concerns me is that that it accomplishes nothing positive to just ridicule the Chicken Littles, and can have negative consequences if seeming to cede them the high ground.

The Chicken Littles have started running around every time that NASA tries to launch nuclear materials, and they always will. If their charges aren't answered, we risk losing the argument by default. Yeah, it's tedious to have to address this over and over, but that's life. It's not about changing their minds, it's about preventing them from poisoning the minds of the general public.

The essay has numerous flaws and distortions that can be pointed out. His recounting of the 1964 loss of an RTG differs from my understanding of the story. As I understand it, the RTG was lost off the California coast after a launch from Vandenburg, and did not break up. The hardened-ceramic RTG shell design was actually proven to work.

C'mon, let's use a little common sense here: The essay postulates a grisly and wide-ranging disaster if an RTG is lost at launch from Florida. Does anybody have any recollection of such a disaster in California in 1964 which cost over a $billion per square mile to clean up and which killed at least 100 people? Me neither, and I was living here at the time. If it had happened, there'd be a law against launching RTGs and we wouldn't be debating it now.

The essay's internal contradictions and failures of logic alone provide a rich lode of rebuttal. Let's rip apart the arguments, and not waste a lot of bits ripping their advocate, however well-deserved that new orifice may be.