You turn to us for voices you won't hear anywhere else.

Sign up for Democracy Now!'s Daily Digest to get our latest headlines and stories delivered to your inbox every day.

NASA Delays Launch of Saturn Probe

HeadlineOct 13, 1997

Dangerously strong wind and computer problems forced NASA to delay the launch today of its Saturn probe Cassini, powered by 72 pounds of highly radioactive plutonium. NASA says it will try again no earlier than Wednesday. The scheduled pre-dawn lift-off of the Titan 4B rocket holding the Cassini spacecraft was pushed back first by technical trouble, then by 100-mile-per-hour winds of altitudes of more than seven miles that would have blown rocket debris down the Florida coast in the event of an explosion. It’s NASA’s largest, most expensive interplanetary probe ever and, to the horror of anti-nuclear activists, carries the most plutonium ever. Project scientists assure the launch was safe and even brought their children and grandchildren to watch it. Critics fear a launch accident would cause the carcinogenic plutonium to rain down on the earth.

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

Non-commercial news needs your support

We rely on contributions from our viewers and listeners to do our work.
Please do your part today.
Make a donation
Top