[X] My Assistant

[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

NASA Announces Public Meeting for Proposed Mars Mission
MEDIA ADVISORY: M06-154
October 4, 2006

[Mariner9]

I stand by my point that the anti-nuke crowd could easily use MER as an argument against going Nuclear.

I don't think it is a good argument, and would ultimately loose for all the reasons everyone has stated, but it is not a completely crazy argument either. Who said the rover HAD to go farther south or north? And does it HAVE to last more than a year? And so on and so on. Clearly you could do the mission with solar power, it would just be a lot less capable.

Keep in mind, these same folk argued that NASA had failed to consider making Cassini solar powered .... although I never did see any indication that the protesters had bothered to make even a back of the envelope study of their own to show that Cassini could get enough power from solar panels, or just how large and heavy those panels would need to be. But hey, not their job, right? They just complain, and NASA should spend millions proving their wild complaints to be invalid.


I think the point was made that the presentation was made to avoid drawing unecessary attention to the whole issue. I agree... and I hope it works. I don't see the anti-nuke folk suceeding (especially with the current administration in office) but I also don't want a nasty battle which would make any future use of RTGs that much harder.