Sep 12 1989
From The Space Library
Antinuclear activists in Florida protested the launch aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis next month of the Galileo space probe, which would carry two plutonium-fueled radioisotope thermoelectric generators. The protesters claimed an accident aboard the Atlantis similar to the Challenger explosion could contaminate large parts of Florida and lead to hundreds of cancer-related deaths. NASA and the White House maintained that the chances of a plutonium leak in the event of an accident was negligible. Galileo was scheduled to reach Jupiter in late 1995. (AP, Sep 12/89; UPI, Sep 12/89; USA Today, Sep 13/89)
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