Screaming Penguin

Make sure and take a peek at the skies on August 17th. NASA launched Cassini, a spacecraft jam-packed with rocket fuel and plutonium oxide, back in October '97 and next week it will finally reach the third planet in our solar system. For those of you familiar with astronomy, the third planet would be the one we currently inhabit. Cassini made a couple of trips around Venus and is on its way to Jupiter (Dec 2000) and then on to Saturn (July 2004). To gain another 12000 mph Cassini will come within 725 miles of Earth, using Earths gravity to swing it off in the correct direction. Some skeptics and fans of Bruce Willis movies are protesting NASAs plans because Cassini could possibly burn up in the Earths atmosphere and release the plutonium oxide into our stratosphere. NASA acknowledges that there IS an infinitessimal risk that such an accident could occur, but maintains that plutonium oxide could only help our already drastically polluted atmosphere.