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By Root 1199 0

(a mission to Mars crashed because scientists failed to convert English to metric measurements in their calculations), or if the probe had malfunctioned, it could have fallen into Earth's atmosphere and burned up. As the scientists put it: "If an accident or failure resulted in loss of control of the spacecraft prior to Earth swingby, the spacecraft could conceivably be placed on a Earth-impacting trajectory." If the craft were to "be placed on a Earth-impacting trajectory," the scientists said that "the potential health effects [of plutonium poisoning] could occur in two distinct populations, the population within and near the reentry footprint and most of the world population within broad north to south latitude bands." In other words, the plutonium would have poisoned those near the crash, and everyone else. The scientists stated that "approximately 5 billion of the estimated 7 to 8 billion world population at the time of the swingbys could receive 99 percent or more of the radioactive exposure." These quotes are from NASA's Final Environmental Impact Statement for the Cassini Probe, one of the documents used to justify the launch.

The Cassini Probe was not the first to carry plutonium. It will not be the last. In 2002 the Comet Nucleus Mission will lift off carrying 25.5 kilograms of plutonium. In 2003 the Pluto Flyby will carry the same amount. Five launches to Mars will carry a total of seventeen kilograms, and four launches to the moon will carry another 42.5 kilograms.

Plutonium. Death. We inject phenol into the hearts of Jews and fungus into the hearts of trees. We send plutonium on rockets known to explode. Before members of our culture exploded the first atomic bomb, scientists were not certain that the explosion would not set off a chain reaction that would consume the entire atmosphere. Yet they proceeded. They believed their calculations were correct, they gambled, and they won. Or lost, depending on your perspective. And, as any gambler knows, the roulette ball eventually must land on double-zero. It is simply a matter of playing enough times.

All too often—every moment of every day, really—the intent of our culture becomes blazingly clear in action. In rare moments of often unintentional honesty it comes clear in speech. The detonation of the first atomic bomb was one such moment. Standing stunned before the awesome power he had helped to bring about, Robert J. Oppenheimer, one of the lead scientists of the Manhattan Project, gave voice to words that sum up in one sentence the essence of our culture: "I am become death, the destroyer of worlds." Staring into a blast brighter than the sun, hotter, less useful—useful only to destroy—Oppenheimer was not alone. He had for company not just Descartes, Chivington, and all the rest, but also in this case those of us who see the culture for what it is, and who stand with him, staring into this power, uncomprehending, afraid, and trying desperately to stop the long and binding chain of action and reaction we see unfolding before us.

Every morning now the rumbling of explosions penetrates my dreams. They—those who would destroy the forest to the east— are getting closer, and they've begun to blast. In my dreams I hear explosions, and the sounds of bulldozers that become the clanking of tank treads. Every dream ends with me running away. I awaken to the barking of dogs, and see Amaru staring at the coyote, who sits not thirty feet from him and returns his stare. I open the window, and Amaru, Narcissus, and the coyote all look at me for one frozen moment before Amaru and Narcissus give chase. The rumbling and explosions continue. I arise, shower, and walk to the coyote tree, carrying, as I have been doing lately, an offering of bread. I don't know whether I am feeding coyotes or deer, porcupines or skunks, magpies or chipmunks. But I know that each day the bread is gone. I see at the coyote tree that they— those who are neither developers nor speculators but killers— have returned, and brought with them more stakes, and more ribbons. They have painted the ground,